| |
Why are vehicles acceptable on Heath?
• I WAS shocked but not surprised to learn of a fatality on Hampstead Heath when a vehicle hit a pedestrian in 2003.
I nearly went under the wheels of an oncoming truck there while jogging last November. I had to swerve to avoid it, and stumbled on broken ground where path meets grass, only just keeping my balance.
Bob Hall writes (Forum, February 12): “Better to have no vehicles on the Heath at all, but that is not realistic.” He then lists why: “The rubbish has to be carted away, the trees and grass maintained and post delivered.”
That is the list in full. How can these tasks justify the loss of one human life and continuous jeopardy to others? Those who have written in support of the new road claim it will reduce risks of accidents from vehicles. All seem to accept vehicles as inevitable, but why should they be? Why the underlying presumption we “must” have them? The Heath managed perfectly well without them until recently.
Bob Hall mentions 132 staff, which works out at 24 per square mile. If asked to use wheelbarrows for the tasks listed, none would be hard-pushed to cover much distance.
Besides risk to humans, vehicles pose much threat to animal life on the Heath. This is made worse by an appalling habit of driving off paths onto the grass or into fields. I see at least one vehicle a week doing this, and fresh tyre tracks over grass every day. (Where voles, stoats, ducklings, hedgehogs, grass snakes and the like used to enjoy no such interruptions.) So please ditch the big toys, now, boys; it’s getting very silly, and someone has already died.
As for the road campaign, why not go a stage further? Anyone up for GOTHAM (Get Off The Heath All Motorists)?
Simon MacAsland
Hornsey Lane, N6
Off/on track
• It’s interesting to see the Corporation of London’s language change as debate hots up on their proposal for an access road.
In the space of one week the “dedicated new vehicular access route” has morphed, first into “an access lane” (Simon Lee, Heath Superintendent, to the Highgate Green Councillors’ Forum) and now, according to a corporation spokeswoman, into a mere “track” – and possibly grassy at that.
The “Say No to the Road” campaigners are to be congratulated for drawing attention to this radical change in the management and use of Hampstead Heath’s hard-won and much-valued green space. And attempts to dismiss them as ill-informed, and over emotional, by some of the groups who claim to speak for the interests of the Heath and those who enjoy it are to be deplored.
Sadly, there is a strong sense of history repeating itself here.
Go back to the “Not a Blade of Grass” campaign of the late 1980s, when the corporation proposed a large new depot and offices on Parliament Hill Fields, and you find the same Heath and Hampstead Society actively promoting a site just in front of the Lido, where one of the best entry vistas onto the Heath sweeps up across the open space of playing fields to the tree-fringed peak of Parliament Hill.
On that occasion they were shamed into doing the right thing and joined other local protesters in persuading the corporation to curb their ambition and limit development to the present staff yard opposite the café.
If the corporation and the Heath and Hampstead Society truly do have the interests of all Heath users at heart, an access solution which safeguards all areas and users of the Heath must be found.
Pamela Edwards
Lissenden Gardens, NW5
|
 |
|
|
| |
| |
