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The rights of Londoners to use the Heath must be paramount
• WE support the 13 members of the Heath Consultative Committee in their opposition to the over-development of Fitzroy Farm and the Water House, and the conversion of Millfield Lane next to the Ladies’ Bathing Pond into a road for large construction lorries (A sad day for the Heath? April 23).
The Green Party campaigned on this issue during council elections in May 2006 and the Highgate ward by-election last year, and we agree with the consultative committee about the issues at stake in the appeal hearing, which took place on April 30.
All three ward councillors attended and contributed to the hearing, something the planning professionals had never come across before. Hampstead Heath is protected by Act of Parliament for the benefit of all who live in London.
Developers have different priorities, but the rights of hundreds of thousands of Londoners who enjoy this part of the Heath each year is, and must remain, paramount.
Cllr Adrian Oliver
Highgate ward
Jenny Jones London Assembly member
Jean Lambert London MEP
Green Party
No sheep on the road
• THE Corporation of London and the Heath Consultative Committee, the parties behind the rejected Heritage Lottery Bid, must have been busy calling in favours to produce such an impressive list of “conservation” groups from as far afield as the Hampstead Garden Suburb RA and Marylebone Bird Watching Society (A sad day for the Heath? April 23).
Why these organisations feel that it is so important to lay a road on Hampstead Heath and blame those who disagree, rather than those who prepared the bid, for the bid’s failure, is beyond comprehension. The letter’s condescending tone suggests the writers consider themselves an élite group with a monopoly on intelligence. They claim the 10,000 petitioners are uneducated sheep swayed by a headline but ignorant of the facts.
Do they level the same charge against the Heritage Lottery fund committee who read many pages of detailed documents yet reached the same conclusion?
The élite squad then accuse the protesters of having exaggerated the importance of what was, after all nothing more than “a 170-yard single width gravel track, hidden behind a hedge where no one ever walks”.
If no one ever walks there, why would “health and safety” demand – in that area only – a separate track for vehicles and walkers? And if this road were such a tiny part of the application, then why would an otherwise worthy and well-presented bid have failed?
And if the road were so unimportant, why didn’t the corporation drop it from the bid when faced with such overwhelming opposition?
The clubs and facilities signatories to the letter should also consider that there are more appropriate sources of funding for track and field facilities than the “Heritage” Lottery fund.
And all these groups should examine the preposterous claim that (a) there are dangerous “conflicts” between vehicles and pedestrians on the Heath and (b) the only way to resolve these is to construct a 170-yard vehicle-only road hidden behind a hedge.
What about a person who stays on to the “wrong” road? And what about the alleged “conflicts” over the other 789 acres of the Heath?
Finally, the letter then attempts to discredit the Say No to the Road campaigners because there are other, arguably more serious, abuses of the Heath for them to oppose.
That’s like criticising Sir Simon Jenkins, who led the successful protest against the football stadium in Regent’s Park, for not devoting the rest of his life to fighting off football stadiums around the country.
Many Say No protesters do participate in other campaigns but the Say No group was only formed when it became apparent that the various umbrella groups we entrusted to protect our Heath land heritage (some of who are signatories of the letter) were not doing so.
Joyce Glasser
Savernake Road, NW3
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