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I was shocked to hear yet another of the Council's plans for our park. I have sent the following e-mail to Council members involved in the decision making, as well as relevant Lampton 360 staff."I write further to our e-mail correspondence earlier this month regarding the works currently being undertaken in Boston Manor Park.I was horrified to hear from the Friends of Boston Manor last weekend that it is the Council’s plan to remove the 15 small hedges to the front of the car park which spell out ‘Boston Manor Park’.  This is such a beautiful feature of the park – the hedges I believe were originally planted by a group of local young people and are now beautifully looked after.  A couple of weeks ago I thanked a few of the Community Payback team who were pruning them so carefully, taking pride in their work. Boston Manor Park is a people’s park – a people who are shocked and dismayed to see so much destruction taking place.  Every person I speak to – and I am in the park every day with my dog – expresses both anger and sadness at the devastation which began in the lower meadow and is now progressing through the woodland area.  Where is the respect for nature?  The rabbits’ homes were the first to be destroyed – where were they expected to run to for safety? We, the people, want our park to be full of wildlife, to be a sanctuary for birds, animals and insects.  The woodland and meadow areas fulfilled that purpose.  The peace in the meadow has now gone – instead we have a clear view of the continuous noisy lorry traffic travelling along Transport Avenue.However, I have digressed from the main point of this e-mail and that is to ask all involved to re-think the decision to remove the ‘Boston Manor Park’ hedging by the car park.  Please listen to the people’s wishes and leave it as it is."I fail to understand why anyone would think of removing those little hedges. The Friends of BM are equally upset.

Joan Adamson ● 1747d

Subbaiah Kuttanda further suggested:quote:" I'm afraid I don't have an answer to your question in particular. The people in charge at Hounslow can be contacted below."unquote:With all due respect that's really not good enough, is it ?Around a dozen people, many if not most of whom are regular visitors to the park, contributed to this thread; and made a specific complaint about the destruction at the bottom of the meadow.Your reaction to this was twofold, that "What we are seeing is a knee-jerk reaction to everything the council does."Which is quite frankly, deeply insulting to all of thosepeople who expressed their genuine shock in witnessingthis wanton destruction, and then furthermore as if to rub salt in the wound, you further go on to suggest thatQuote:Proposals were done back in 2018, and it went through a public consultation last year. what you see now is the start of the work.      unquote:Then, when it was pointed out to you, that none of the plans to which you referred, nor any public consultation, envisaged destroying the entire area,as was subsequently carried out, all you can suggest that "we" should contact the people in charge at Hounslow. The very people you were falling over yourself to defend, only a short while ago.As if that would do any good, in any case.That environment can't simply be re-instated. It'sbeen destroyed for good, no matter what. Just as itsunlikely the mandarin ducks could be persuaded to return to the lake given that their roosting places were so effectively destroyed.  michael adams...

Michael Adams ● 1756d

This is not a great start to the spending of the lottery fund.  I have now seen for myself what has taken place and will be contacting LamptonGreenspace with the following:1.  We already lost the entire meadow planted by volunteers and destroyed by Junction 2 and the lack of maintenance by Carillion/Lampton 3602.  They have taken out the hedging donated from Trees for Cities and planted by volunteers yet their notice says they are doing the work to attract birds, mammals ....  My colleague has pointed out to me this morning that now we have lost the winter food source for small birds.3.  They have taken out most of the blackberry bushes which were well used in lockdown, I know because children were bringing them to us to turn into blackberry muffins.4.  They appear to have taken out two of the 14 black poplar trees planted in the name of Alice Gross - I will ask the gardener to check this in case I am mistaken ..but I doubt it.5.  The walkway has disappeared - the route for people to pass through the park as the meadow area is often too wet to pass (the reason why we also chose black poplar as they likes water).6.  The area has been left very dangerous in that it is now possible to get to the canal from inside the park - any good workman would have hazard taped/fenced off the area.  7.  We had to go through a risk assessment process with LBH/Lampton for us to have the community projects working in the park.  We were very clear what work we would be doing between now and April 2021.  At no time has it been outlined what work was going to take place or that we should remove from our work list. Guy you have provided a link but this gives no detail.  We said we were going to re-instate widths of paths and woodchip same.  Re-instate over-grown paths.  Regain access to memorial trees (14) to include weeding and mulchingTrim down over-hanging bramble and dig out near memorial tree.  Weed around apple trees and mulch.  We only submitted this in July - DID THEY READ IT?8. The contractors have exposed old litter including broken glass - this in my opinion should have been removed before leaving site, particularly as the area has not been fenced off.9.  The contractors have left the bollards to the area under the flyover down.  One of our fears has always been the return of travellers but also those that decide to do wheelies on the long suffering football pitches.  We have tyre marks on the carpark from 2 weeks ago so we know the maniacs are around.We are finding more and more often although we are listed as partners in this project that our own views are not taken on board.  It does make me continue to wonder - why do we bother.

Linda Massey ● 1773d