Council Asked to Give More Protection to Green Spaces in Acton

Sites believed to be under threat from development

St Dunstan's Gardens in Acton
St Dunstan's Gardens in Acton

Participate

Proposal Made to Redevelop Holiday Inn Express

Deadline Looms to Comment on Greenock Road Tower Blocks

Women's Pioneer Housing Scheme Gets Approval

Council Submits Plan to Build Tall Tower in Centre of Acton

Sign up for our Acton newsletter

Comment on this story on the

July 8, 2023

Ealing Council is being urged to give extra protection to three local triangular greens (St Dunstan’s Gardens, Friars Gardens and Friars Place Green) to ensure they are never built on.

The Friends of Friars Gardens has requested that all three sites be redesignated as Local Green Space (LGS) in Ealing Council’s Local Plan, providing extra protection from development.

St Dunstan’s Gardens and Friars Place Greenll have recently been under potential threat of being built on. Last year, an application to construct a care home on St Dunstan’s Gardens was blocked.

LGS can be designated by the council and, once it is in place, it is subject to the same strong development restrictions as Green Belt, ruling out any development except in special circumstances.

To gain this status it must be shown that an area is ‘demonstrably special’ which can be achieved by testimonials from local people explaining the importance of their local park to them.

Friars Gardens in Acton
Friars Gardens in Acton

The three sites are in the Acton Central ward which has less than 0.86 hectares of green space per 1,000 of the population, one of the lowest rates in the borough.

Friars Gardens in Acton
Friars Place Green

So far, the group have collected 214 statements from residents using a digital survey and a leaflet drop is planned in the next couple of weeks to encourage more people to respond.

‘The designation of Local Green Space is not widely used in London boroughs, but it should be,’ says Juliet McDonald, co-founder of Friends of Friars Gardens. ‘As the council are currently discussing their 15-year local plan, now is the time for them to give these greens the protection they deserve. Any refusal to do so would put their ecological ambitions in doubt.’

The survey takes less than two minutes and there are only two short questions.

Click here to participate in the survey.

Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More

This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism.

Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets.

We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more.

However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do.

We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area.

A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site.

One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute.

If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor.

For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site.

 

Bookmark and Share