Lambeth Walk Doorstep Green

If you live near the park you'll have been concerned at the disgraceful way in which the builders working on fixing up the Lollard Street terrace houses have approached our public park by simply exploiting the Open Space to store their materials, dump rubbish, damage or trash plants and bushes, grass, walls and so on without any apparent regard for the park or the local people who use it and value it.

Not to mention the public health and safety risks they are creating - and often leave behind them overnight quite unprotected - and appear not to care about at all.

FoLWOS has been working with Parks and the Council to try to get them to clean up their act and our park, but several personal representations to the builders have failed to make them behave any more responsibly.

So we've agreed with the council to take legal action against the builders and the houses' new owners to enforce compliance and proper care.

At no time before construction began (or since) were we or the Parks department approached to discuss the project in a basic neighbourly fashion, so this seems the next step we have to take.

There are quite heavy fines associated with this kind of construction work problem, and if they are levied we will push for them to be returned to the Doorstep Green to help fix up the damage already done.

And try to repay the loss of amenity and safety we have all suffered by improving our park - perhaps in a way the DG could not otherwise afford?

---

Hey, hey! New, better, more efficient path lights are at last installed to replace the old ones (well, new light heads on top of reconditioned DG green poles where they could be reused and new ones where they couldn't)!
Plus the long story of the 120m of new metal fence is complete and the sections are finally in place along the northern length of Fitzalan Street where the broken sections, temporary wooden replacements and huge gaps were a problem for years. This is the style we'll be using for the rest of the fence around the park in the next steps along the DG path.

It has surely taken a while (can it really be three years since we started?), but with proper bins, lights, fence, new trees and new signs all in place and lots more stuff to come we can finally begin to see what the old patch of green desert will turn into . . .

As long as the old ways of treating the park as though it was a rubbish tip / dog-toilet / building site / cheap dump don't persist (see tomorrow's post).

We are also negotiating hard with Trees for London to see if they can deliver what we want and good value for money from the Doorstep Green planting money this month. Wish FoLWOS luck (or better still, join us . . )

---