See detailed map and explanation
lifeisland.org is a support website for Manor Gardening Society Allotments in Hackney Wick, whose future is in jeopardy due to pending eviction from the current site.The allotments have ended up surrounded by the planned Olympic Park (the red patch on the map to the left). The landscape designers for the areas between stadia have taken no account of the existence of the allotments. They have drawn a concourse across us which is needed for the four weeks of the Olympic event only.
Iain Sinclair said on The Today Programme, ‘We don’t want it imagining for us. We don’t want it overimagining. We want to imagine it for ourselves.’
Consultation has consisted of telling the local people what the LDA have decided they are going to do to regenerate us.
Short History of Manor Garden Allotments
In brief, the history of the gardens goes back to 1900 when Major Villiers, philanthropic landowner, established the Eton Manor Boys Club and the allotments for the local poor. Our community is close-knit and has members who started on their fathers’ plots in the 1920s. We have a waiting list, despite our precarious circumstances, many of whom are young people. There are 80 plots which provide food for over 150 families in the summer. Our gardens and community are considered remarkable by many and as a result we have featured in many magazines and TV programmes including the Observer Magazine (5 page article) in 2004 and BBC2’s Rick Stein’s Food Heroes in 2003.
Our campaign
Even if it were possible to uproot and replant such an established community, the success of obtaining the proposed relocation site is in doubt. Our members and many local people believe that to bulldoze the gardens to build a footpath would be to squander an opportunity to showcase a uniquely British institution and an example of the philosophies espoused in the London Food and Biodiversity Strategies and the Sustainability aims of the the 2012 bid.
Support Group
A support group of plot holders, architects, local people and experts in the field of food and environment have been working to develop ideas for retaining the allotments through the Olympics in order to develop from them in the Legacy Park. Using this superb working example of sustainable land use could be developed educational facilities, an affordable Farmers Market, many more acres of growing space for local schools, mental health and rehabilitaion services to use, facilities for learning about and sharing food and cultures, sustainable technologies and land management.
Imagination of Place
Manor Garden Allotments are in an unusual situation in relation to the very welcome regeneration of the area by the ODA and the LDA. We are situated on land to be returned to parkland post 2012 and we are not seeking any financial gain.
We see ourselves and our Legacy Park Proposal as being able to offer a substantial contribution and added value to the Legacy by forming a basis for the new communities to be established in the Olympic village and other housing.
We believe that our already long-established community will help to deepen the sense of connectivity between the currently divided parts East and West of the Lea. Shared activities in the expanded gardens between schools, pensioners, ethnic community groups and the Farmers Market alongside the sports facilities could make the Legacy Park into the healthy heart of the East End community.
The proposal currently on the table is to bulldoze this resource to prioritise a footpath needed for the four weeks of the Olympics. While our members understand it is more complicated than this; being in a massive building site for several years, the obvious security difficulties and even the need to relinquish control of the site for a year or so. However, the society has gardened through two world wars and can accomodate this disruption if it means continuity of use of our particular piece of land, which is symbiotic with our community.