17 March: Spring prep at Cranford park

Come along to Cranford Park to help with light gardening, including sowing wild flowers, or just to have a look. All welcome, bring the family.

Sunday March 17, 11am – 1pm. ‘Secret Garden’ Spring preparation

Tools, good company and light refreshments provided. Meet in the small walled garden, adjacent to the Stable Block. This, we hope, will be the first of many openings of the garden this season (with Macmillan Cancer Support).

More information about the group can be found at – http://www.cranfordparkfriends.org/

Be a friend of Cranford Park

The fantastic Friends of Cranford Park are running some awesome events.

Grow Heathrow (currently known as Snow Heathrow) will be be going to the winter tree identification walk at 11am, Sunday 16th February. Meet at the Cranford Park visitor centre.

Join the Friends of Cranford Park Facebook, or follow @cranfordpark for the latest updates.

Outdoor events take place whatever the weather. Unless stated otherwise, please meet at the park information centre, near car park.

 Second Thursday of every month, 10am – 1pm Cranford Park Volunteers

Feb 14, March 14, etc. Help with a variety of jobs in the park and woodland.  Meet at park information centre. Contact: Alison Shipley, ashipley@hillingdon.gov.uk

Third Thursday of every month, 11am. Feb 21, etc. Cranford Park Healthy Walk. Brisk two-mile stroll in friendly company. Why not include this as part of your new year fitness regime? Led by Countryside and Conservation Officer Alison Shipley.

 Saturday February 16th, 11am. Winter Tree Identification. A winter wonderland walk through the park with tips on how to identify trees when not in leaf. Hear about historic uses for trees and how to assess their age. This event has been rescheduled from Saturday, January 19th

Friends Event: Sunday February 3, 11am – 1pm. Tall Tales and Trash!

Everyone welcome to join a community litter pick, hearing tales from Cranford’s exciting past and identifying wildlife as we go. Hear some true stories about your park and help smarten it up at the same time. Gloves, tools etc provided. Led by Bob Barton (CPF) and Billy Coburn (Thames 21).

Friends Event: Thursday February 28, 7.30pm  Cranford Park Friends Meeting. Crane Community Centre, Fuller Way, Harlington UB3 4LW (Bus E6)

General meeting following on from our AGM in November. All welcome.

Saturday March 2, 11am. Signs of Spring! A guided walk around the park looking for spring’s first stirrings. Led by Alison Shipley (LBH).

Friends Event: Sunday March 17,  11am – 1pm. ‘Secret Garden’ Spring preparation. Come along and help with some light gardening, including sowing wild flowers. All welcome, bring the family. Tools, good company and light refreshments provided. Meet in the small walled garden, adjacent to the Stable Block (with Macmillan Cancer Support). If there a garden enthusiast who would like to help lead this on the day please contact Bob Barton.

The Green Spaces Events Booklet details activity in parks throughout the Borough of Hillingdon and includes the above events.

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Reshuffle has “u-turn” written all over it

Like the steady roar of planes coming in to land over West London, the aviation industry keeps droning on about expanding London’s airports. Last week’s reshuffle shows Cameron and Osborne are listening to them too.

Justine Greening and Theresa Villiers, two Ministers with whose opposition to the third runway was well known, have found themselves shunted out of the Transport Department. A Number 10 official sniggered that Greening would “have plenty of time to think about runways as her flight to the next developing country circles the airport yet again.” (Which doesn’t even make sense, because why would a plane flying to a developing country be circling at Heathrow? Unless Cameron thinks the UK is a developing country? Anyway, I digress.)

Cameron and Osborne have established an inquiry to look into “the scale and timing of any requirement for additional capacity to maintain the UK’s position as Europe’s most important aviation hub”. Lest this loaded question prove anything other than a licence to lay tarmac, they asked the former head of the Confederation of British Industry, Howard Davies, to oversee it. Davies was once a special adviser to the climate change denier Lord Lawson. He had to leave the LSE after he was busted for nodding through some chunky donations from Gaddafi’s son. Davies won’t decide to build a third runway until 2015, which means all three parties get to run on a “no third runway unless the commission tells us to build it” platform at the next election.

Residents needn’t worry though, because Boris Johnson is on the case. He’s set up a rival inquiry, proving that the invisible hand of the free market will ensure competition. The Mayor’s inquiry will report in 2013 and, like the government’s commission, will conclude that we need lots of more runway space, because that’s what it is being asked to do. Given that no one is going to build a runway in the Thames Estuary – his preferred solution – Boris gets to oppose the third runway while making it ever more likely that Sipson and Harmondsworth will be buried under tarmac.

None of this means that the third runway will be built, of course. The strongest argument against it isn’t climate change, it’s that the damned thing has no purpose. There is bags of spare capacity at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports, which is why Virgin Atlantic was able to offer new routes between London and Manchester days after losing its West Coast train franchise. Using all that spare capacity would be stupid, of course, because flying causes climate change, makes loads of noise and pollutes the air we breathe. But let’s not forget it’s there.

This blog post was taken from the Plane Stupid website

Heathrow villages are blooming marvelous

Transition Heathrow have teamed up with Harmondsworth village allotments to bring you a community project to brighten up the villages with hanging baskets and public flower beds.

After the crazyness of last Thursday with 40 riot police rudely invading Grow Heathrow, we are moving on to concentrate on more serious business. On Sunday 22nd May from 10am at Grow Heathrow there will be a day of planting up hanging baskets and containers for residents to take home to hang around the neighbouring villages.

One week later on Monday 30th May, again from 10am at Grow Heathrow, we will have a day dedicated to planting up all the flower beds in the area. In the meantime we’re asking all local residents to drop off there hanging baskets in preparation to The Vicarage in Harmondsworth or to Grow Heathrow in Sipson.

If you want any more information or have any other ideas to bring to the project then please e-mail info@transitionheathrow.com

Joining Forces

After months of planning, in early October, Transition Heathrow finally took off. After moving into a house in the lovely village of Harlington we finally had our platform to start the project.

So far we have been settling in and meeting local residents, listening to everyone’s ideas and views on how the local community feels about the area, the people and the bastards BAA.

It was immediately clear that there is a massive sense of community spirit round here. Locals waving to each other in the streets and visiting each other for cups of tea.

We have been made to feel very welcome. After announcing ourselves at a meeting organized by our local Labour MP John McDonnell (legend) the audience seemed extremely enthusiastic.

Quite frankly, I can’t think of a better place in England to bring the transition town model to; with the attitudes of the locals I am more than confident that we will succeed in our aims.

This month we’re ready to get stuck in on the ground and have plans to organize a film showing before Christmas and Copenhagen to formally unveil ourselves.