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The gardens which will shut for five months during improvement work |
Battle lines drawn over garden walk (with even its name under dispute)
Improvements dismissed as ‘bland’ but supporters of new-look defend loss of trees
A ROW broke out this week over plans to spruce up a popular garden walk at the Angel.
Not only do angry residents disagree over improvements to the City Road end of the walk, but they can’t agree on its name.
In one corner is retired teacher Avis Baldry, a member of Angel Association, who calls the walk New River Gardens. She has accused the Town Hall of coming up with “bland and empty” designs.
In the other corner is Dr Jill Nicholls, chairwoman of Duncan Terrace Association, which represents residents living in a row of Georgian properties looking onto the gardens.
She calls the walk Duncan Terrace Gardens and supports the council’s plans.
The council’s Greenspace team has removed dense laurel bushes and small trees from the gardens to allow more light into nearby homes and to improve security. Bushes have been taken out to stop people using them as toilets.
Residents who attended a consultation meeting held last month indicated their support for plans to narrow a footpath, widen a grass area, and plant more colourful, interesting and scented plants and shrubs.
Work on the new design, paid for out of the Town Hall’s A1 Improvement Project, is due to start next spring and is expected to mean the gardens remain closed for five months.
But Mrs Baldry, from nearby Gerrards Road, believes the work already done has “denuded” the area and that the new plans will only increase the “blandness” of the gardens.
”They’ve really overdone it,” she said. “There are huge areas that have been denuded. They are not going to replace the trees and shrubs, which I think is wrong.
“They will be making the new paving narrower than before, which won’t be good for parents with young children.
“I don’t agree with a wider grass area because I know that will be worn away and turned into muddy patches.”
She was unable to attend the consultation meeting to register her views because it clashed with another event.
Mrs Baldry added: “My view is that there appears to be a fashion among garden designers working for local authorities like Islington to make everything bland and simple so it can be easily maintained.
“It reminds me of the refurbished Islington Green, another example of a weak and unexciting design.”
But Dr Nicholls said residents had been calling for the gardens to be improved for a long time.
She added: “I’m the first person to criticise Islington Council when they get it wrong and I take no prisoners. But in this case they have consulted widely and have been listening and tried to meet everyone’s requirements.
“Volunteers from Duncan Terrace have already done lots of work, like trimming and cleaning up litter, but it needed more serious work.
“The scheme will mean a thinning out and improvement of the hard landscape and replanting with interesting, colourful and scented plants that encourage insects.
“Removal of any small trees was carried out because they were ill or rotten and under consultation with us, the residents.”
She added: “I get cross with people who don’t take part in a consultation and then whinge after the event. The balance of opinion is for more visibility and colour and an improvement to access points.
“Our association is hugely impressed by how co-operative the council has been.” |
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