Media Coverage

Article in Muswell Hill Journal, 7th January 2010

Article in Muswell Hill Journal, 17th December 2009

Article in Muswell Hill Journal, 16th July 2009

Simon Evans, Thames Water spokesman, said: "It will be very difficult to get planning permission on this particular green area, but if someone wants to take a punt on it and buy it with a view to getting planning permission at some future date, then that may well happen." From the above article (16th July 2009)

Article in Muswell Hill Journal, 2nd July 2009l, 2nd July 2009/span>

Article in Haringey Independent,11th July 2009

Article in the Evening Standard, 21st July 2009

Article in the Muswell Hill Journal, 31st July 2009

Article in the Muswell Hill Journal, 6th August 2009

 

PRESS RELEASE
23 July 2009
THAMES WATER ACCUSED OF ‘DOING THE DIRTY’ IN ALLOTMENTS BATTLE

The chair of planning at the London Assembly, Jenny Jones, visited the threatened Fortis Green allotments today (Thursday) and accused site owner Thames Water of “doing the dirty” on the local community.

Accompanied by fellow Assembly member Joanne McCartney, Jones helped unfurl a banner alerting passers-by to the danger that a beautiful space where locals have grown fruit and vegetables for 80 years will be bulldozed for houses and blocks of flats.

“You can’t eat flats,” said Jones. “Thames Water has some good policies on the environment but here they are failing to recognise the value of allotments and the imperative there is to grow healthy food. They are really doing the dirty on local people.”

The water company has announced it will sell the land to the highest bidder and is encouraging developers to think they will be able to overturn Haringey Council planning restrictions and build up to 48 dwellings on the land.

Jones, a former deputy mayor of London, leads the Green Party in the Assembly and chairs the Planning and Housing Committee, while McCartney is the Labour Assembly member for this part of North London.

Both stressed the strong cross-party support for the Save Fortis Green Allotments campaign, with local Liberal Democrat councillors and the LibDem MP, Lynne Featherstone, also giving their backing, but the Assembly members warned that the legal protection for the land was not watertight. Even with the strongest political backing, McCartney said: “The developers always have the money to appeal and appeal – and they know how to get their way.”

With Thames Water set to auction off the land in October, Jones and McCartney urged local people to use every means to fight the plan and expose the hypocrisy of Thames Water, whose website pledges its commitment to sustainability and biodiversity in its policies. “You have a real battle on your hands,” said Jones.

PRESS RELEASE
16 July 2009
THAMES WATER TO SELL OFF ALLOTMENT HERITAGE
A group of north London allotment holders were shocked last week to learn of secret plans to sell off their plots to developers - even though local people have been cultivating fruit and veg there for nearly a century.

Thames Water, the owner, told them it was advertising the site for sale as ‘allotment land’, but the plot-holders in Muswell Hill have discovered that potential buyers are being shown a 'feasibility sketch' showing 50 houses and flats on the site next to Fortis Green reservoir.

The allotment holders believe this is the company's way of encouraging speculative builders to challenge Haringey Council's designation of the site as ‘Significant Local Open Land’ which is protected from development.

‘We are determined to expose what Thames Water are up to’, says Roger May of the Fortis Green Reservoir Allotment Association. ‘We’ll fight it every inch of the way. Instead of paving over the land we want to see more allotments there, with more local people able to make the most of this precious asset.’

The move by Thames Water comes at a time when the government and the mayor of London are backing allotments as a healthy, green resource that is vital for city-dwellers -- and when the water company itself boasts that it is committed to sustainability and biodiversity on its landholdings.

London is also struggling with a city-wide shortage of allotments. Haringey Council alone estimates that it needs space for 1,500 new plots by 2016, such is the popular demand.

The Fortis Green reservoir site used to be part of a larger green space and wildlife corridor that has been eaten away by progressive building development over the past two decades. Some of the plot-holders have been growing fruit and vegetables there for thirty years, and there have been allotments on the site at least since the 1920s.

The allotment association has contacted King Sturge, the auctioneers acting for Thames Water, because the feasibility sketch prepared by Paul Brookes Architects, showing 50 houses/flats on the site, gives a misleading impression to possible buyers and flies in the face of the planning regulations.

Allotment association secretary Nic Vosper said Thames Water – owned by Australian investment bank Macquarie – had been preventing wider use of the site for years by limiting the number of people it allowed to have plots there ‘We believe there is room for many more families to enjoy working the land here and eating their own healthy produce from it, but despite very high levels of demand for the allotments, Thames Water has obstructed that.’

Members have set up a website at www.savefortisgreenallotments.com, and said: ‘We’ve already had a huge amount of support from the local community. We want to develop the allotments as a community asset, not just in the short term but for future generations.’

The campaign has attracted more support from different sides of the political spectrum:

Haringey Councillor Martin Newton: "The allotments and open space are a valued resource for the local community and for wildlife and there must be a long-term commitment from the Council to protect this asset from development. I will do all I can to ensure that this site is protected for future generations".

Haringey Councillor David Winskill, shadow lead for Leisure and Parks in Haringey: "At a time when waiting lists for allotments all over London have been closed, it seems insane to even consider building on this precious resource. I will do all I can to resist any proposals for housing on the site."

 For more information please contact Nic Vosper at nicvosper@aol.com  phone: 020 8482 9277