It appeared 4.5 acres of allotments in Hackney Wick, East London, known as Manor Gardens Allotments (aka Eastway Allotments) had been under threat of bulldozing.

Campaigners were determined to persuade the authorities not to demolish their 100 year old allotments to make way for landscaping for the Summer Olympics park. Marches were organised, and petitions sent to the Prime Minister in the hope of saving the gardens.

All this was news to me today as I researched this post, but the story seems to have reached some sort of conclusion. The Manor Garden Allotments were in fact demolished in October 2007 and the plot-holders moved to a temporary site. But only after it was agreed with the allotmenteers that they be reinstated on the original site once the games are over.

Maybe some sort of a Biome like those at the Eden project in Cornwall would have been a better compromise. Then just run the pathways over it. Although with the heat of the London summers you would be killed out watering inside there. 

More info: www.lifeisland.org


Video on the allotments struggle, first shown on BBC1’s InsideOut dated 30 Oct 2006.

photo credit: vandalog

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Tags: allotment, allotmenteer, authority, Biome, Campaigner, Cornwall, Eastway, Eden project, garden, Hackney, landscaping, London, Manor Gardens, Olympics, pathway, petition, plot-holder, Prime Minister, site, Summer, Wick

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 8:39 pm and is filed under Allotment news from abroad.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.