Residents Association support ‘Grow Heathrow’ in eviction threat

PRESS RELEASE: Days before ‘Grow Heathrow’ go to court, which could lead to eviction of the Sipson community garden, residents’ group Harmondsworth and Sipson Residents Association (HASRA) have come out strongly in support of the project.

‘Grow Heathrow’ first took over the former-market garden site on Vineries Close, Sipson, in March 2010 after years of neglect causing social problems in the area. Residents and the Transition Heathrow group cleared up the land removing 30 tonnes of rubbish and began running the space as a community-hub and garden.

The landowner Imran Malik has now decided to take ‘Grow Heathrow’ to court and try to remove the community project. The project is due in court this Thursday. Supporters are being encouraged to show their support outside court at 9.30am.

Harmondsworth and Sipson Residents Association has published a letter defending the Sipson gardeners stating:

“We would strenuously encourage Mr Imran Malik to sell the land to members of Grow Heathrow” and “any attempts to use the site for improper business ventures, as has been done in the past, will receive strong opposition from the residents of the villages.”

The letter added:

“The people involved with this project (Grow Heathrow) have transformed the site. In the process they have created a much-needed community hub for local people who have spent years living under threat of destruction due to proposals for a third runway at Heathrow Airport. Their tireless efforts and support have regenerated enthusiasm for community working that inspires the many people who visit.

Grow Heathrow campaigner Alex Goldsman said:

“We really don’t want to see the land go back to causing the problems it did before. It’s brilliant to get support from HASRA who we’ve been working with the last few years- as well as John McDonnell MP, members of Hillingdon Council and the .ComCafé in West Drayton. We put in an offer to buy the land last year as we really want to make Grow Heathrow a long-term community project.”

ENDS

For more information and interviews please contact: 07890751568 or press@transitionheathrow.com

Notes to editors

•  Grow Heathrow are in court this Thursday 17th November 2011, at Uxbridge County Court, 501 Uxbridge Road, Hayes, UB4 8HL. The hearing starts at 10.30am but supporters and journalists are being encouraged to get down to the court for around 9.30am for a show of support and photo opportunity.

•  The full HASRA letter can be downloaded from HERE.

• Link to photo campaign: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47991844@N06/sets/72157628011759448/

• All photos can be used from our Flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/47991844@N06

Defend Grow Heathrow Video

Defend Grow Heathrow! by Joshua Bregman on Vimeo.

Photo campaign launched

Grow Heathrow is in court on the 17th November 2011 facing eviction. We need your support. This is a callout for people to get involved with our exciting photo campaign to support the project.

The idea is to show the story of Grow Heathrow and the communities its been part of over the last year and a half. If you want to help keep Grow Heathrow alive then please send a picture of yourself holding a statement of support to info@transitionheathrow.com

Some images already can be found HERE. And thankyou MissBadChild, who recently won an Olive Morris memorial award, for the illustration above.

Fun fun fun at the Fun Day

On a blustery Saturday morning we set off out the gate and up the road to the community Fun Day at the Com.Cafe. Loaded with pots, plants, paper, pens and plants our prize-winning carnival float trundled off up Sipson Road to the Glebe Estate in West Drayton. We set up under an oak tree, stringing up bunting and soon a shout-out from the hosts brought the first curious children trotting over.

We’d brought along chilli and tomato plants to re-pot and on the art table we drew and cut out flowery crowns. Soon we had a queue of children ready to dig their hands into the bags of compost and take home plants to the window-sills of West Drayton.

After having the Com.Cafe visit us on our site at the beginning of August it was great to be invited to their Fun Day and find out a bit more about the work they do in the community. We loved the performance by the street dance class and wish we were young enough to go along! It was a lovely day, we got to meet lots of families from the local area and hope it’ll mean we’ll see some newcomers at Gardening Club and Crafternoons.

We’ll be back on Thursday for the community showing of new film Just Do It!

Dale Farm is rowdy

Earlier in the week some members of Transition Heathrow visited Dale Farm to show a bit of solidarity. We had an amazing time in what was an interesting visit into a really tight knit community that is often lacking from the rest of Britain. The travellers have just received their eviction dates and need all the support they can get.

Dale Farm is the UK’s largest traveller community consisting of nearly a hundred plots and at its peak over a thousand residents. The site is a former scrapyard and is actually owned by the residents – they just don’t have planning permission to live on half the site. After a wave of anti-traveller laws were passed in the 1990s John Major’s government encouraged travellers to buy land and get planning permission to settle down. However, planning permission is not easily available to traveller communities anywhere. According to the Commission for Racial Equality, more than 90% of traveller planning applications are rejected – this compares to less than 20% of rejected applications for everybody else.

The planned eviction is a form of ethnic cleansing which will result in travellers being forced onto the road and their children pulled out of school. They would leave Dale Farm if they could, but the council have refused to fulfil it’s obligations to provide more traveller pitches.

The most ridiculous part of it all is that £18 million has been set aside to remove the 90 families (about 500 people, many of them children). It is a complete waste of time, money and violence to remove the Dale Farm residents who have done everything they can to find a peaceful resolution to avoid the brutal forced eviction. Spending £18 million on an unavoidable eviction in the current times of austerity measures is indefensible – it is a huge waste of public money that should be spent on supporting, not destroying, communities. Even condemnation from the UN is being ignored.

For all these reasons, the residents have vowed to “fight to the very last” and so they should! They have nothing to lose at this point. Supporters are being urged to come to Dale Farm and get involved with ‘Camp Constant’ to stand with the community. What amazed me in my short time at Dale Farm was the amount of respect shown between the local residents and outsiders who have come in to help them defend there homes. Before we had even reached the front gate we had two sets of families gleefully thanking us for coming to support them.

The police and bailiffs are going to try and start securing the site on the 12th September so try and get down there before if you can to help them build the barricades. There is also a march planned this Saturday from 1pm which people are being encouraged to attend.

Working with the Com.Cafe

On 3rd August Grow Heathrow was visited by local community cafe – the ‘Com.Cafe’. Parents and Children from West Drayton joined us for a lovely day in the sun planting lettuces, chasing chickens and learning about our project for the first time.

The day marked the start of a growing partnership between our community project in Sipson and the amazing work that the ‘Com.Cafe’ does in West Drayton. As Transition Heathrow members, we think it is vitally important to engage at all levels with people from across the community so the visit was really important to us and it was really nice to bring new people into this space.

On 10th September we will be linking up again with the ‘Com.Cafe’ when will be hosting some of our regular events at their fun day in West Drayton.

Here’s the photos of their visit on FLICKR and if you are looking for a good place to eat breakfast while your in the area – make sure you take a visit to the ‘Com.Cafe’.

Forgotten Spaces

The story of the Heathrow villages, and of Transition Heathrow, resonates with many people in many places. Here’s an interesting project inspired by our community done by architects Andy Faulkner and Sam Clark in the Royal Institute of British Architecture’s “Forgotten Spaces” competition.

Called ‘Market Garden’, the project would like to see the Great Barn in Harmondsworth returned to a thriving focus for the community. As the architects explain:

“Harmondsworth is in danger of becoming disconnected and forgotten. The village, on the peripheries of Greater London, is currently bound by transport infrastructure on three sides: due North is the M4 motorway, due West the M25, and due South Heathrow Airport. Recent plans to expand Heathrow would complete the enclosure, effectively making a land-locked island of Harmondsworth. 200,000 vehicles drive past every day, and 90 million passengers fly over each year”.

“The Great Barn is reopened, celebrating its past, and re-connecting it with its land. This is an opportunity to further encourage community gardening and local food production. The barn is a place for public events and fairs, and its reclaimed land is open for large festivals and food production, and also provides a potential new or additional home for the ‘Grow Heathrow’ project, a group of community activists in residence at a former nursery in nearby Sipson, threatened to be demolished.”

And it would look a little something like this…

Market Garden has been shortlisted in the competition – we’re really looking forward to finding out the winners on October 19th at Somerset House! To find out more about Andy and Sam’s proposal, and to read about the other entrants in the competition, check out the Riba website.

Transition Heathrow wins best float at the Hayes Carnival

On Saturday, Transition Heathrow set up camp for the second time at the annual Hayes Carnival. Not only did we have our own space in the park, but this year we also took part in the parade. Built out of bicycles, our pedal-powered float won first prize and the Mayor of Hillingdon presented us with a trophy and a cheque for £100!

After touring Hayes town with crazy choreographed dancing, amazing trash fashion outfits, and banging tunes – we made our way to Barra Hall Park. Thanks to Coltek we had a solar-powered stage with bands playing all day, on top of this, we had a café with cakes and drinks, a growing area providing the community with plants and seeds for free, and a free shop with donated clothes.

The day was a great success and gave us the opportunity to show many people what our project is about. Thank you to all the bands that played, and thank you to everyone who put in lots of time and effort in the lead up to the event to make it all happen. Hopefully see you there next year!

Check out all the photos from the day HERE

Heathrow Primary School Summer Fayre

On Saturday Transition Heathrow were invited down to the Heathrow Primary School Summer Fayre. In the blazing sunshine we set up our stall amongst the array of other stalls including local radio station Hayes FM who were airing live from the school playground.

Our stall was the only one offering free plants and free seed sowing and once word had spread that the plants were free they were soon all snapped up. Many kids and parents went home with chilli and tomato plants and hopefully a bit more knowledge about the importance of growing our own food locally. We also gave out lots of newsletters and flyers promoting our regular events at Grow Heathrow.

Thankyou for the invitation Heathrow Primary School – we hope to be involved again next year!

Grow Heathrow’s 1st birthday party – Guest Blog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWDerzFiqOo&feature=player_embedded

After much anticipation the day was finely here, Grow Heathrow’s first birthday.

Despite a wonderfully sunny morning, at around 1′o clock when “gates opened” it started to rain. But did this dampen our spirits, no. Both old and new faces came to the day, with tours under umbrellas, a fire in the rain and much appreciated fresh tea and biscuits pouring out of the green house. A bike workshop and cinema were in full swing too and these were in the dry. The cinema showed Grow Heathrow: the beginning, a video filmed when the green houses were first taken explaining how this project came about and what people felt this project could become in the future: now. Other short clips and animations including #TakeVAT ‘s recent aviation subvertising video, Polluter harmony, a Greenpeace video parody of the eHarmony for Tar sands, and the Impossible Hamster were also shown.

The atmosphere was very relaxed and all seemed to be having fun, as the day continued more people arrived bringing with them more and more cake for the cake competition; a highly anticipated event. The dining table was full of cake, I literally have never seen so much cake in one place, and the winner was …. Tracy and family! This was tightly fought but they had hedged their bets by bringing five or six cakes, it was really really good cake thank you all.

When the cake was judged and tours finished, the one hundred plus people raised a glass of champagne to Grow Heathrow’s first birthday and listened to some brilliant speeches. It became clearer to me then, more than ever, how much this project means to everybody involved. Be that living on site or in the villages or even a frequent visitor. In that room at the back of the first green house people spoke about how this project has allowed them to say YES for once instead of NO all the time. How it has brought the community together again, not just around the opposition to the third runway, but to an alternative way of living as well. And the amazing achievements and stories of the last year have inspired them.

This year has been amazing. Who knew that in such a short space of time that small strip of land could mean so much to so many people. It’s not just that site though, its the people, the people that are this community who make Grow Heathrow so brilliant, amazing and inspiring. Given what we’ve achieved in a year, I imagine the possibilities for the next ten months, the next year, the next two years. I’m truly inspired by all that we’ve created here and I hope you are too.

Cameron Kaye