Message from the Friends trustees chair
There has been a lot of discussion and debate concerning the volunteer fencing project recently on the Scrubs. This evening Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen, chair of the Friends of Wormwood Scrubs, posted this message on the FOWWS googlegroup.
Dear Friends,
While it is disappointing to have to do so, there is no choice but to correct some of the assertions and inaccuracies which have been circulated on the Friends’ chat group.
The egregious actions of HS2 have catalysed many people - and also LBHF - into action and it is important that we all work together and continue to harness this energy in a positive way. If we are divided by our disagreements, we are so much less effective in lobbying LBHF and others.
Many Friends just want to enjoy their visits to the Scrubs and do not want their email over-cluttered from the chat group.
We have frequently reminded Friends that FOWWS is a user group and we can and do lobby and we try to hold LBHF and others to account, but we are not the managers of the Scrubs.
Comments on the chat group do not come from, and are not in any way ‘approved’ by the Trustees of FOWWS (formerly the Committee) unless they are clearly identified in that way. So, in effect, anyone can say anything they like. It would be a shame to have to change this, but I also know that many Friends have been taken aback by the number and the tone of some recent emails.
Hedging/Fencing
Your Trustees and all the Friends want to protect the Scrubs as a whole including the ‘meadow’ and have long been urging better path maintenance around the ‘meadow’ in particular. We welcome the participation of volunteer groups to support Council efforts on the Scrubs, but they must be in accordance with plans and policy of LBHF/WSCT as even the best-intentioned people cannot implement whatever they want. I have been told by LBHF Officers that the hedgers had been given approval to in-fill hedge gaps on the east and south sides of the ‘meadow’, but that all the work on the north and west sides was not authorised and I understand that these will not continue. The hedging/fencing is strongly opposed by many Friends who have told us so.
It is a breach of the bye-laws to ‘intentionally obstruct any other person in the proper use of the ground….’ and hedging/fencing may also breach other legal restrictions against ‘enclosure’.
In view of the LBHF information the hedgers/fencers should have stopped. As the hedges/fences on the northern and western ends were unauthorised they will need to be removed.
It is really important for keeping the peace (figuratively and literally) that nobody should attempt to control activity on the meadow area, as there are quite a number of reports of people exercising their legal rights to walk there being told off for doing so, and in some cases threatened with ‘trolling’ on the whatsapp group. Providing information and guidance is very different from giving instructions, and those who wish, courteously and non-confrontationally, to inform and guide should be welcomed.
As a factual correction of recent statements on the chat group, the ‘meadow’ is not part of the Local Nature Reserve, as was discussed during a recent Friends’ zoom discussion with the newly appointed LBHF ecologist, nor has an application been made by the Council for it to become part of it (although Friends have requested an application be made), and even were this to happen it does not mean people cannot walk there. Much of the Scrubs including the ‘meadow’ has the much lower designation of a Site of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINC)
FOWWS Background and Activity
As a small group of active volunteers FOWWS has been incredibly active over many years in trying to mitigate many of the problems the Scrubs faces and will continue to face in the coming years. See here for a brief history of our very many campaigns -Campaigns — Friends of Wormwood Scrubs (friendsofthescrubs.uk) and here for newsletters and annual reports Blog 2 — Friends of Wormwood Scrubs (friendsofthescrubs.uk). Suggestions and assertions to the contrary are upsetting and potentially offensive to those Friends and Trustees who have worked so hard over the years.
FOWWS formal response to the many consultations, including the Conservation Masterplan and the Ecological Biodiversity Plan was always undertaken having asked Friends for their views, which were very much taken into account in these responses.
Guided by the legal expertise of Trustee David Jeffreys , a huge amount of work has been done on planning and technical issues including but not limited to engaging with/pushing back against the OPDC, TFL, HS2, the London Assembly, the planning inspectorate, QPR and LBHF as well as responding to numerous consultations with the input of the broader friends group. Indeed we have been successful in mitigating some of the worst aspects of development. Even this year, FOWWS – led by our newest Trustee Faye Thomas – has achieved the much less destructive ‘alternative access route’ onto the Scrubs by HS2, and I was asked to speak at the OPDC Planning meeting which approved it. There have been other ‘successes’ most notably including, vitally, the prevention of multiple access routes onto the Scrubs from the north under the OPDC and HS2 plans; the prevention of the viaduct across the northern end of the Scrubs as part of the HS2 and Crossrail project.
Increased Scrubs usage, paths maintenance and signage
2020 was an exceptional year with substantially increased usage of the Scrubs starting with the first lockdown and throughout the summer. This was actively covered in the news bulletins and many friends - especially Nina Hall and others on the Old Oak side - were active in alerting the police and councillors over issues of picnics in the wilderness areas and illegal barbecues, large parties, and so on. We wrote to LBHF with regard to the increased footfall and requested measures be put in place to protect some of these habitats for the ground nesting birds by improving the maintenance of paths outside the sensitive areas and signage.
As regards the issue of paths maintenance and signage, we have on numerous occasions raised this issue with LBHF and Richard Gill imploring that paths be maintained before wet winters over these last few years. This has only just been implemented! It has been frustrating to say the least that the council failed to do this - the carving up of the wild areas is partly due to this negligence. However, last year ALL parks have suffered from the increased footfall.
The management - or undermanagement – and inadequate maintenance of the Scrubs has been a bone of contention for the Friends for many years and the committee has raised this numerous times and in numerous ways over the years. Indeed, it is due to the Friends that LBHF constituted the Wormwood Scrubs Charitable Trust Committee and due to pressure from Miriam and I who sit as non-voting members on this committee that LBHF is now looking to separate the management and maintenance of the Scrubs from its broader parks and open spaces management.
Conservation MasterPlan and Biodiversity Plan
These are not yet finalised, due in large part to the efforts of Trustees to ensure they respect the ethos of the Scrubs and do not ‘parkify’ it.
Trustees have met with Richard Gill on at least 3 occasions, from the time of his first appointment back in 2018, for extensive walks around the Scrubs to enable him to understand the many precious aspects the Friends enjoy - the ‘wild not tamed’ theme, the absolute need for maintenance of the paths over winter. Some of the Trustees have been instrumental in ensuring the biodiversity interventions initially proposed by consultants LUC were revised to ensure that the Scrubs was not ‘parkified’, that unwelcome features such as the pond were not pursued, that planting of woods did not obscure the fabulous sunsets and sunrises people enjoy. We ensured they understood that while woods were important so were open skies and open spaces that people enjoyed and that the Scrubs was not all carved up. Smita and I led the talks on proposals here and prevented the original plans being implemented last year without these revisions.
Linford Christie Stadium
Later this year there will probably be proposals for the improvement or re-development of LCS. Getting this right is far more important in the long term than anything else the Scrubs faces at present. We must be ready to unite in opposing any very large development which could destroy the Scrubs far more permanently than the HS2 work. Your Trustees are actively preparing for this battle, should it prove necessary to fight.
Long-term future for the Scrubs
The need for ensuring protection of the Scrubs over the next 20/30 years and beyond has always been well and truly understood, hence the need to ensure any proposals - volunteer led or not - are in the interests of all the users of the Scrubs, as well as caring for habitats for biodiversity.
Current Issues
In all the issues that surface, FOWWS Trustees work hard to ensure that we take a positive stance whereby pragmatic solutions are offered as alternatives to proposals which might be more detrimental to the Scrubs, or, if necessary opposed completely. It really is important for all Friends to understand this.
The new website looked after by Sarah Johnson is a wealth of information, clearly laid out.
Let’s all enjoy using the Scrubs and respect the interests of all the different activities – the walkers, dog-walkers, footballers, players of baseball and other games, kite-fliers, model aeroplane groups, bird-watchers, and everyone else. Let’s battle with those who don’t have the Scrubs’ long-term interests at heart, not with each other.
Best wishes
Stephen Waley-Cohen
Chairman of the Trustees of FOWWS