Council terminates lease of Best Small Conservation Site in 2024

Volunteers who have spent hundred of hours to achieve Best Small Conservation Site

London in Bloom Gold Award 2024

In the same week as we received the notice of termination of the lease of the field and a refusal by the Leader of the Council to change his decision at the Council meeting on 1 October, we were told that we are the best Small Conservation Site 2024 and that we were making the site a really invaluable habitat for wildlife and a safe and nurturing space for people. This could be our swansong as the Trust will be wound up if the lease ends in September 2025. Follow this link to the full report.

Council refuses to budge - apparently consultation would have made no difference!

This is what the Leader said at the full Council meeting on 1 October:

“The Council can assure local residents that when the lease is transferred to Dose of Nature for Pensford Field, that the field will be accessible to those residents, local communities, schools, nurseries and organisations who use or benefit from the field now. The lease to Dose of Nature will include requirements for the continued benefit of current users of the field as well as the wider benefit and scaling support of people with mental health and other needs in the Borough. The management plan will ensure protection, security and maintenance of the land and natural environment and will be monitored by the Council to ensure this remains at the core.”

So we have gone from a position where the Council was not aware of usage by schools, nurseries and local people on 5 September to one where at least the community should be able to visit the field in the future

What will this mean for the field and the community?

We do not think that a mental health charity will be in a position to put in the hundreds of hours that our volunteers have put in to make it the beautiful site it is today. We also have been told by Dose of Nature that they intend to build offices next to the studio and construct human shelters in the field, the last proposal they submitted to us being 11 metres by 3.8 metres. ChatGPT says 83 people could fit under it at a squeeze and what a lovely toehold for developers! So it is probably better to acknowledge that a valuable site for wildlife and a community facility will be compromised rather than pretend that putting provisions in a legal document will achieve the same result.

Next Steps

We continue to encourage you to write to your local MP and councillor and to let us know their responses. We have been touched by the number of letters received. We are waiting for the Council to respond to our Freedom of Information request to establish exactly how this decision got taken behind closed doors. We are meeting the Leader of the Council with Dose of Nature in late November where we will try to ensure the new lease protects those who use the field at present.