New opportunity to save the woods!! Deadline Friday 23rd

[Michaelcb]

http://savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/object-now/4590876971

There is huge anger and dismay at Southwar's appalling plans to destroy 12 acres of woods and hundreds of thousands of graves for a few years of burial.

[dbboy]

Somewhat over stated.

[ianr]

I assume this follows on from http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1574548.

The planning committee agenda, documents, and minutes (items 5.3 on) are at http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=119&MID=5203.

Any of the Appendix 4 files (700 kB satellite images) seems to have both application main site locations marked in white.

eg http://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s56776/Appendix%204%20image.pdf

[edhistory]

Did anyone read this group's material on groundwater contamination?

[DaveR]

"There is huge anger and dismay at Southwar's appalling plans to destroy 12 acres of woods and hundreds of thousands of graves for a few years of burial."

There appear to be a comparatively small number of very vocal opponents to these plans, and a significant number either actively in favour (including people with relatives buried in the cemeteries in question) or who can see that there are good arguments on both sides. Talking about "Huge anger and dismay" at "appalling plans" is misleading, to say the least.

[Loz]

"Huge anger"?

Chortle.

[Sue]

Oh, here we go again ....

Yet another thread started on the same subject - is this the fourth now? Or possibly the fifth?

I think the previous one was about the council "ripping down" "The Angel of Southwark" as the start of its "destruction."

Then it turned out that yes, the council had in fact removed an angel statue from a grave - in order to restore it.

Doesn't fill you with confidence in the accuracy of anything else posted on the subject by this group.....

However I guess that if they use sufficient emotive language they can probably stir up "huge anger" in people who already have some "huge anger" which they are looking to channel into a convenient cause.

ETA: And yet again, we have an overgrown part of a cemetery described as "woods". At least this time the thread title doesn't refer to the non-existent "Southwark Woods".

[nxjen]

The link in the first post invites objectors to write a letter protesting about the plans to the Church, the Diocese of Southwark. Seems a bizarre course of action but I may be missing something.

[Loz]

Having failed to convince the council and the public, they are now appealing to a higher entity.

[robbin]

I am hugely angry about all this.

[robbin]

Not to mention dismayed.

[Dulwich Born And Bred]

No, what is the run down on that ?

edhistory Wrote:

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> Did anyone read this group's material on

> groundwater contamination?

[kitwhitfield]

I'm very upset about the destruction of the woods, and I've written a letter. There are a lot more of us than you might think.

[BrandNewGuy]

I'm not in favour af all these trees being destroyed either, but I have serious qualms with the methods of this pressure group in twisting the truth and shouting from the rooftops. In my experience (and I have some in this area), far more can be gained in these situations by patient hard work and by gaining the trust and ear of those who make the decisions.

[edhistory]

It's on their web-site suggesting cut-and-paste comments to use.

It's very funny.

"This site is within the 400 day catchment area of the River Peck Basin and is

an SPX1 site for groundwater collection for drinking water. Southwark council

has carried out no detailed work with Environment Agency officers to assess the

negative environmental impacts of new burials from this development on water

pollution"

[mynamehere]

Open Space left for common land and cemetery space in the 1800's was land that flooded and was useless otherwise. Camberwell Old Cemetery floods in part. It is not allowed to bury in standing water. Graves have recently been dug and filled immediately with water. I cannot imagine what edhistory might find funny about this. There is run off from Honour Oak and high points south of the cemetery and this is being handled by creaking to capacity Victoria conduits and the entire area is being monitored by Thames Water.

As to graveyards more generally as we enter a time of worldwide recognition of catastrophic climate change. Yes, Catastrophic. Climate. Change. The only things that are guaranteed safe guards to global warming and scrubbing carbon in the atmosphere are trees huge mature trees. Trees scrub the air. Trees scrub the water. Trees produce oxygen. What's not to like about an enormous tree?

The consultation conversations of 2011 are 4 full years ago, they are flawed. 4 years as land becomes scarcer and trees are rarer and London has been declared one of the dirtiest cities in Europe. 4 years is a long time, people's attitudes have changed: tree burials, cremation with huge pageantry short of burial. Southwark Council is not taking best scientific consultation into consideration when it is now proceeding to bulldoze and truck thousands of loads of earth out of COC. Whatever pollution and contaminates there are in this soil despicable as fly tipping and ignorant disposals are these contaminates can be capped with clay and trees, yes, trees can be planted on top and in 50 years, 100 years, maybe even 1000 years from now the tree will have provided the earth with every imaginable restorative benefit including disposing of the poison humans put in the soil.

Every single choice Southwark Council has insisted on making is the highest cost non solution today and forever into the future. There is nothing cost effective about the burials or rotating graves with bodies in and bones chucked out for more bodies. The trucking of soil is nonsensical. The culling of foliage and trees is surreptitious at worst and ignorant of catastrophic climate change and it's impact within the lifetime of our children.

Very few people chose burial any more and some of those who think they want it quickly change their minds when they realise the options now available. Dug revolving graves are being hyped in religious groups egged on by the need to manipulate the living by refusing to discuss respect for the dead in ways that are compatible with catastrophic climate change.

COC and CNC could be glorious areas of dense trees with memorials and ash and tree burials and memory benches and ceremonies that don't end with holes and cement and fake flowers

[nxjen]

"Open Space left for common land and cemetery space in the 1800's was land that flooded and was useless otherwise."

Not so. In the case of Peckham Rye Common this was highly desirable land for building upon and it is only because of the foresight of Camberwell Vestry who purchased the Rye in 1868 to prevent this happening that we have the wonderful open space now. Their successors the Camberwell Borough Council compulsorily purchased One Tree Hill to maintain it as a public space at the beginning of the 20th century.

[edhistory]

mynamehere Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Open Space left for common land and cemetery space

> in the 1800's was land that flooded and was

> useless otherwise. Camberwell Old Cemetery floods

> in part. It is not allowed to bury in standing

> water. Graves have recently been dug and filled

> immediately with water. I cannot imagine what

> edhistory might find funny about this. There is

> run off from Honour Oak and high points south of

> the cemetery and this is being handled by creaking

> to capacity Victoria conduits and the entire area

> is being monitored by Thames Water.

>

Can you point to the evidence for this?

John K

[dbboy]

And just to mention AGAIN, we are spoilt for green space around Se22 and SE23, if you want woods look no further than the Great North Wood rising from The Grove right up and into Sydenham and backing onto the golf course.

[redjam]

dbboy Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> And just to mention AGAIN, we are spoilt for green

> space around Se22 and SE23, if you want woods look

> no further than the Great North Wood rising from

> The Grove right up and into Sydenham and backing

> onto the golf course.

No wish to get into the ins and outs of all this and I agree the emotive language of the OP is very OTT - but this argument sucks.

[James Barber]

The campaign have a petition with over 8,500 signatures. They've confirmed addresses for neighbouring ward they have around 1,500 signatures which means they have around 17% of the electorate there.

So I think the poster is quite reasonably stating huge anger etc.

[Penguin68]

Very few people chose burial any more - actually, about a third of funerals in the UK are burials (about 1.6m a year) - there would (it is thought) be more, were burials not both so expensive and burial grounds so short in supply. Further reducing the supply (against what is clearly a demand) is not helpful. Although many people are happy to cremate (or otherwise dispose of their bodies in a non-burial manner) there are still a sizeable portion of families for whom burial is a necessary and important part of the grieving process.

The trees to be removed (actually, not that many in the grand scheme of things) are not 'majestic' in any sense, most are no more than 15-20 years old, many younger, and their growth is not as would be planned in modern forestry. If the graveyards were allowed to become fully 'wild' they would be inaccessible and dangerous - so very shortly (on H&S grounds) would be sealed and people not allowed in them at all.

The (real) woods we actually do have around Dulwich are properly (and expensively) maintained to allow access. What is being proposed here is anything but that. And if anyone believes that actions in these two cemeteries will have any impact at all on climate change they are, frankly, kidding themselves.

The real likely environmental impact (as it was when the areas were last neglected) is uncontrolled fly-tipping - probably encourage by Southwark's apparent plans to charge for large item collection.

[nxjen]

The Officers Report which can be found from following the link on ianr's post makes for interesting reading and calmly counters the objections. The area is referred to as "recent ruderal shrub" that's 12 years old, and more trees will be planted than destroyed.

[Penguin68]

The campaign have a petition with over 8,500 signatures. They've confirmed addresses for neighbouring ward they have around 1,500 signatures which means they have around 17% of the electorate there.

So I think the poster is quite reasonably stating huge anger etc.

Oh, come on - anybody will sign anything nowadays, it takes no effort or any real commitment. Many have signed believing the hyperbole and misleading statements by those sponsoring the petition, or because they think it's 'hip' to be seen as 'green'. I suspect that very few are even actually mildly annoyed, or even know the areas, or the arguments on the other side. And 17% isn't 'huge'. 75% might be. Or is that how you judge the 'huge' support you got over CPZs etc.? And out of interest, have you compared the signatures to the electoral role - how many are registered electors - do you know, or is your 17% claim a simple extrapolation?

[dbboy]

Well said Penguin68