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| Talk,
Julie Miller,
15 January 1999 | |
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Crystal Palace is not usually top of the list if you're looking for a piece of the action, or that is until recently. When Bromley Council (in their infinite wisdom) decided that just what the local residents needed was a Multi-Cinema, Mega Entertainment, traffic-inducing, litter-increasing complex, bang smack on the old sight of the original Crystal Palace, and on top of some beautiful trees they should have known there'd be trouble.
Now call me old fashioned, but I thought in this age of democracy that local residents might have had some say in the matter. Apparently no, and for most of last year as Bromley Council were polishing off their plans, a growing number of fluorescent flyers began appearing in local windows "NO to palace plans!" A notice, which as a frequent visitor to the area, I found intriguing. What plans? I asked around, and before long came to the conclusion that very few local residents wanted the old Palace site to be developed, and together they had their own plans: a guest spot on "Your Shout!" (a sort of home video type production for the enraged to air their
views on TV) and an even bigger distribution of "NO to palace plans" flyers.
How exciting! I wanted to be a part of this urban revolution, even thinking that perhaps we should sell up and relocate to such a passionate area, immediately! But after some weeks (and more flyers that you could paper the Millennium Dome with) the bulldozers where still set to go in, until, that is, the arrival of the eco warriors!
At last there was some hope. The professionals had landed. No faffing around with flyers, they immeditaly got stuck in!. Within what seemed like hours huge tree houses had been erected and although rather precariously balanced, they have since stood the test of time. Slightly more media attention was gained, and after months of stalemate, it seemed that the residents of Crystal Palace with help from the army of wandering warriors had made their point!
Feeling quite smug that the people versus Bromley Councilx was not over yet, it was to my horror (while enjoying a quiet stroll through the park) that I witnessed the battle to save the trees take a nasty turn for the worse.
As two police helicopters circled overhead, the warriors buried themselves deeper underground, I moved closer to make out the shapes in the trees, I wanted to shout my support, but I'd never have been heard above the din of the choppers and anyway, I felt a bit silly own my own ( a 16 month old baby doesn't really count on the battlefield).
This war was not going to be won easily.
Meanwhile, I telephoned my friends. Apparently some of the eco warriors had cemented their hands in concrete so as not to be removed, a hasty action I felt sure would end in tears.
Another flyer was brought to my attention while having lunch in one of the local restaurants, "CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL TO SAVE THE TREES" it looked just too exciting for words - just the sort of way an urban hippie should spend Saturday night saving trees from the hands of developers - if only we could have found a baby sitter! Instead we watched TV and waited for the London SouthEast news to broadcast the lastest. Later I phoned my friends who-I was sure-would be fighting the cause on the front line. I felt sadly deflated when they informed me that the cold rainy weather had sent them rushing to Blockbuster for a night in with a warm curry.
So what of the battle now? It's on hold as I write. The eco warriors have moved on to pastures new. Some of the trees on the proposed site are still standing. And there may be some hope yet. A judicial review due to sit in November 99 will decide whether an enviromental impact assessmentx should have been carried out before the work had gone ahead.
We need trees for more reasons than I care to mention, but what we need more is passion, to stand up for what we believe in; we need things to fight for and even better when the next CANDLE LIGHT VIGIL takes place what we really need is a nice warm evening, a picnic table and a big bag of twiglets-it's hungry work being an urban hippie at war.
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