Save Haggerston Park group fights council over community garden “land grab” plan

The disputed depot area of Haggerston Park. Photograph: Josh Loeb

A campaign group is opposing “land grab” plans by Hackney Council to build a temporary base for an academy school on the site of a former depot.

The group, called Save Haggerston Park, has stuck up posters in the vicinity warning parkgoers about what it sees as the increasing privatisation of green space.

Although the land where the temporary school would be constructed is currently tarmacked over and ringed by metal fences, it sits within woodland and meadows and was historically parkland itself. It contains a community garden and orchard and is used by BMX riders to store their bikes, Save Haggerston Park has said.

The campaigners want the land to be reintegrated into the surrounding park. A post on the Haggerston Orchard and Community Garden page on Facebook states: “Unfortunately, the council is unable to provide assurance that the land will be returned to green space following the temporary use and there is no option, we must object.”

The proposed development on the depot land is intended as a temporary measure while the City of London Academy submits plans to the government to build two new secondary schools in Hackney and would help ease the chronic strain on school places.

It is proposed that new permanent schools will ultimately be built on the Britannia Leisure Centre site – alongside a brand new leisure centre – and the current Benthal Primary School site, near Hackney Downs.

But campaigners say their patience with encroachments has been exhausted.

Save Haggerston Park lists the SureStart centre and school changing rooms based in the park as examples of what it calls a “stealthy land grab” by the Town Hall. It even added in a press release sent out to journalists: “Both Bridge Academy and Haggerston Schools use the park every day for all their PE lessons.”

This week part of the Haggerston Park walled garden was sealed off to the public for a private, ticket-only Comedy Central event called Friends Fest.

No one told you life was gonna be this way – Friends Fest in Haggerston Park. Photograph: Josh Loeb

A consultation on the council’s plans for the temporary school buildings closes on 29 August.

The “high quality temporary buildings” will help Hackney meet the need for two more schools by 2021, and ultimately provide 2,500 additional local school places, the Town Hall has said.

A statement on Hackney Council’s website added: “The proposals are restricted to the hard-standing area within the existing fence line, which comprises 2.33 per cent of the total park site.

“They do not include the nearby BMX track or the orchard area to the south of the depot site, Arrangements have been discussed with existing interim users of the depot site to relocate them elsewhere within the park.”

Councillor Anntoinette Bramble, cabinet member for children’s services and education, said: “This is the latest stage of our exciting and ambitious project to secure the school places we need to ensure we can provide local schools for local children.

“This programme has been ongoing for over a decade and has seen a number of new academies open and existing schools rebuilt, refurbished and expanded. The next phase has had to be fast tracked following the withdrawal of Department for Education approval for a free school last year, which means that instead of the anticipated one extra school, we now need to build two. Using the former parks depot means we can ensure high quality school places while we build the permanent schools.”