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A sad day for the Heath?
• SO the Heath ‘road’ is apparently scuppered (Heath funding? It won’t be you,
April 16).
But the loss for many Heath users is urgently needed improvements to the Lido, a new information centre, “greening” and making more rural this rather “municipal” part of the Heath, and new sports facilities for the kids in Gospel Oak. Also jeopardised may be an improved café and refurbished athletics buildings. A triumph for people power, or a sad day for the Heath?
And what was this new “road” that so threatened the Heath? A 170-yard, single-width gravel track, hidden behind a hedge tight to the boundary of the cricket pitch where no one ever walks. But who would not sign a petition when urged to “Save Our Heath. New Road Across The Heath!” No wonder thousands signed up, but how many really understood the issues involved?
As members of the Heath Consultative Committee, we challenge those opponents of the lottery proposal who have questioned “the effectiveness of the Heath Consultative Committee as official guardian of the Heath”. We share this responsibility with the Heath Management Committee and consider in depth all aspects on the Heath. On just this issue, we studied reports and drawings, considered all available options, and discussed the plan several times on site and in meetings. Our unanimous conclusion was that this was the best way of removing the existing conflict between pedestrians and essential vehicles on the busiest path on the Heath (from Highgate Road to the café.) The City emphasised that nothing would be done without extensive further consultation, and appealed for other suggestions to resolve this conflict.
Far from objecting to any new roads on the Heath, the “Say No To The Road” campaign’s counter suggestion was a new vehicle-only road across the petanque pitch with access from Highgate Road. Apparently, a new road is fine as long as it is not within the campaigners’ sight.
We did not hear from the “Say No to the Road” campaigners during the 20-year battle to prevent a footpath in the Vale of Health being used as a road, or during the recent successful campaign to stop a major development on the banks of the Vale pond, or during the ongoing 10-year struggle to prevent a colossal development at Athlone House ruining the Heath next to Kenwood. Both consultative committee members and the City have fought battles to defend the Heath on all these issues and countless more.
There is however one current and devastating threat where we really need a “Stop the Road” campaign right now. Would the campaigners support the Heath committees and other public-spirited individuals in fighting the massive overdevelopment along Millfield Lane next to the Ladies’ Bathing Pond?
The Appeal Hearing is on April 30. Developers at Fitzroy Farm and the Water House will then press to take over this quiet and leafy Heath path, ban pedestrians, and construct a road solely for huge construction lorries to grind along every day for several years!
Now that is a real “road threat” to the Heath!
Colin Gregory
Hampstead Garden Suburb RA
Michael Hammerson
Highgate Society
Ian Harrison
Vale of Health Society
John Hunt
South End Green Association
Alix Mullineaux
Marylebone Bird Watching Society
Mary Port
Dartmouth Park Conservation Area Advisory Committee
Michael Salmon
Friends of Kenwood
Robert Slowe
Representative of Clubs using facilities on the Heath
Ellin Stein
Mansfield Conservation Area Advisory Committee & Mansfield Neighbourhood Association
Richard Sumray
London Council for Sports and Recreation
Dave Walton
Representative of Clubs using facilities on the Heath
John Weston
Hampstead Conservation Area Advisory Committee
Jeremy Wright
Heath & Hampstead Society
Why bid failed to impress
• ALTHOUGH it is regrettable that the Heritage Lottery Fund has thrown the baby (the demolition of buildings at the entrance to the Heath) out with the bathwater (the road) in rejecting the bid, it was an inevitable consequence of the Corporation of London’s and the Heath Consultative Committee’s patronising attitude to the residents and Heath lovers everywhere.
But even now Bob Hall has not learnt the lesson that united we stand, divided we fall.
His quotations in your paper show that he considers the 10,000 campaigners incapable of understanding anything, especially that “this space has to be managed” (Heath funding? It won’t be you, April 16).
It’s perhaps unhelpful to ask how the Heath was managed before motor vehicles were invented and more pertinent to point out that the proposed road had nothing to do with managing the Heath.
It seems to have everything to do with providing a private driveway from Gordon House Road to the car park of the new management offices.
Mr Hall has never explained why, if the proposed road were really needed to service the many acres of Heath land, it stops 200 yards in, at the management car park.
The lottery committee must have noticed that it’s the existing paved, shared, access roads on the Heath (and there are plenty) that will still be used by the service vehicles that manage the Heath.
Finally, we should all be asking how much time and money was spent on the bogus consultation, on the unhelpful meetings, and on this bid that so clearly failed to impress the lottery committee?
Had Mr Hall and his colleagues worked with the public rather than against us, all that money might have been put to better use making the really necessary improvements.
Building any new road, let alone a vehicle-only road, on Heath land will never be an improvement.
Joyce Glasser
Savernake Road, NW3
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