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The Friends of Talacre Gardens, Beverly Gardner, Peter Cuming, Celine La Freniere, Szilvia Baranyak and David Landman, when they launched their Town Green campaign |
Growing hostility in the gardens
Angry Town Hall bosses appear determined to resist attempts to protect green spaces for future generations, writes Richard Benson
IN recent weeks, there has been a strange feeling of anger, bewilderment and sadness in part of Kentish Town.
It is to do with a small, beloved patch of grass called Talacre Gardens, and some Camden Council officers who seem not only out of touch, but inexplicably angry and hostile towards people who live in the Talacre area. This is not a story about the usual bureaucratic bungles and council bashing; it is about council officers fighting the very people they are employed to represent.
A brief history. In 2006, the government passed a law that allowed people who lived near green spaces to ask their council to class the spaces as “Town Greens”. Town Greens are protected by law forever, and cannot be altered without approval from the Secretary of State. In 2007, Camden Council asked people in the Talacre area to set up an organisation called the Friends of Talacre, to help look after the Gardens.
The Friends thought a good way to look after the gardens would be to have them made a Town Green. They applied to Camden Council, and at first several councillors, including the council leader, publicly supported the idea.
However, council officers, the full-time employees who advise councillors, stepped in and told them it was a bad idea. The councillors duly voted against it. And then, having made their decision, announced that officers would ask Talacre people whether they wanted Town Green status for Talacre Gardens or not.
If it sounds bizarre and confusing, that’s because it is. But it gets worse.
This autumn, Camden Council appointed outside consultants to distribute questionnaires to locals – and this is when the anger and bewilderment set in.
The questionnaires were so complex that when one resident rang for an explanation of a phrase, a council officer said he did not understand it either. The parts that did make sense were ludicrously biased against the idea of a Town Green: the description of what a Town Green would be like listed problems, while the case for keeping things as they are listed only advantages.
Worst of all, the questionnaire announced that council lawyers had said that if the Gardens were made into a Town Green, they would have to be open 24 hours – adding that this “could have implications for the control of anti-social behaviour”. In fact, the Friends of Talacre’s lawyers say that Town Greens do NOT have to be open 24 hours at all.
Why are council officers so hostile to an idea that locals love? Well, in the past five years, Camden Council has drawn up at least four plans to develop the park: a café seating area, a car park, a new road, and swimming baths have all been mooted and rejected after public outcry. A controversial new residential development overlooking the Gardens may yet be built, and the space could fix possible problems. Town Green status would stop all that.
But perhaps there is another issue. Talacre Gardens was created in the 1970s following a campaign by local people, many of whom had – and still have – no gardens of their own. This is one reason it remains so meaningful to the community now.
Could council officers fear that if Talacre wins Town Green status, then people all over Camden might try the same thing with their small, beloved patches of grass?
They might take control of their neighbourhoods, protect them for their children, do their bit for the natural environment – all those good things we are encouraged to do. The trouble is, this would mean the council officers losing a bit of power. And they don’t seem to like that.
Not round Talacre anyway.
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