Wanstead Park and its future: Public Consultation Meeting on 6th February 2010

We are grateful to the Conservators of Epping Forest for giving local people this opportunity to have their say on the future of Wanstead Park. 

The Wanstead Parklands Community Project (WPCP) has been working since 2005 to raise awareness of the history of Wanstead Park and to campaign for its preservation and improvement.  The Project won Lottery funding which was used to produce an acclaimed series of DVDs and other publications. We have organised a programme of archaeological research which has shed important new light on the Park’s history. We also maintain a comprehensive website devoted to the Park.

While welcoming this meeting, we feel it is unfortunate that it was given limited publicity. Many local residents, who might have wished to attend, may not be aware of it.  Some of those present may not be aware of the background and purpose of this meeting.

As a result of a long campaign, Wanstead Park has been included by English Heritage on its register listing those parks and gardens “At Risk” from neglect, decay or pressure from development. It is one of 96 such parks and gardens on the register, and is described as having “extensive and significant problems” and to be “deteriorating”.

We believe that Wanstead Park deserves a major regeneration supported financially through the Heritage Lottery Fund. Many lesser parks have already benefited from this Fund. Recognition as being “At Risk” is an essential prerequisite to making the case for a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The requirements of the grant application process provide local people with an opportunity to be consulted about any future plans. The City of London, as custodian of the Park, will need to produce either a “Conservation Statement” or a “Conservation Management Plan”. This process will require meaningful input from local residents.

To this end we would like to see a body set up to represent ALL stakeholders with an interest in the Park – not just the landowners. As committed supporters of the Park with acknowledged expertise and long experience of working with the Conservators, the WPCP is very willing to be involved as founder members of any such steering group. 

In the longer term, we believe that the recognition of Wanstead Park’s unique historic landscape by the Conservators as distinct from the rest of Epping Forest is an important step forward and that it will now be given the resources and active management that it merits and deserves.

However, Park users at the present time have many legitimate concerns about day to day maintenance and attention to these issues must also be met in a sustainable manner.

WPCP sees the key strategic priorities as:

1. Preserving what still exists of the seventeenth and eighteenth century garden features, preventing their further deterioration and restoring them where feasible. These include the extensive lake system, the Grotto, the “Fortification”, the “Amphitheatre”, the viewing Mounts and historic vistas.

2. Promoting the Park and its heritage and to make it accessible to a wide audience.

3. Researching its history and archaeology.

4. Recording and conserving the wildlife and ecology of this important green open space.

We hope that the many other interested public parties can be drawn together in common purpose.

We see a very clear pathway forward: -

1. To draw up an agreed Conservation Statement…

2. …leading on to a Conservation Management Plan with realistic and appropriate costs for renewal projects and sustainable ongoing maintenance,

3. …which can ultimately lead to an application to the Heritage Lottery Fund.

An initial bid could be submitted for a Project Planning Grant to prepare the Conservation Management Plan and we are willing to assist in the creation and submission of that bid. A plan can be produced which identifies priorities and initial costs, and enables us, as a cross-sector alliance of interested parties, to draw down major funds.

For our part, the Wanstead Parklands Community Project hopes to be a positive partner, while retaining its independence, and always acting in the best interests of the Park and local people

http://www.wansteadpark.org.uk/

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