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Garden closed over collapse
AN award-winning garden and play area for children in Bloomsbury has closed amid fears that it could collapse.
The Phoenix Garden in Stacey Street – winner of the Camden in Bloom prize for the last three years – closed after a road flanking it caved-in a fortnight ago.
Kerbstones vanished into New Compton Street and the gaping chasm revealed a series of derelict 18th-century wine cellars.
The council has hastily repaired the road and concreted in the cellars but Alex Bray, chairman of the Phoenix Garden Association that owns the lease to the site, fears a second collapse.
He said: “I was walking along New Compton Street and I saw a 6ft hole. I saw arches and what looked like cellars. The kerbstones had just vanished into the ground. I rang the council but they said they could not come for three weeks – so I rang the police. Then the council came pretty quickly.
“They sent a digger but work stopped after I pointed out to them that the road was cracking.”
Mr Bray said the council was checking the garden after craters appeared near the garden’s sandpit.
A council spokesman said: “The cellars under the road and footpath on New Compton Street have already been filled by the council’s Highways team.
“The site was sealed, investigation done, the cellars filled with concrete and the road/pavement put back to normal between April 22 to May 4. The cellars under the gardens aren’t actually the council’s responsibility but our Parks team are helping the group sort it out.”
The garden is built on a Second World War bombsite and was bought by the former Covent Garden Open Spaces Association in 1984.
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