It’s nearly a year since the fateful and desperate day when we formed our campaign to save our park, and this park friends group to run it. Thanks to all of you, we still have a park to use and for our children to play in. It also means that we are holding our AGM shortly: please join us for a drink and to talk about our park, at 8pm, at the Chatterton Arms on Wednesday 24th February!
In this newsletter:
Future Events
Our Future work for our Park
What we did this year
Finally
Future Events
10:30am Saturday 12th March – litter picking
12noon Sunday 12th June – OUR 2ND ANNUAL BIG LUNCH
12noon Saturday 10th September – Havelock Hoedown
But more will be arranged – keep an eye on your email or the notice board!
Our future work for our park:There is a survey on our website to canvass ideas / votes for changes to the park – please fill it in, or if you don’t like online surveys, drop us an email at friendsofhavelockrec@yahoo.co.uk: Most of the current responses would like to see picnic bench(s). However, we are required to use approved suppliers and installers, and we are told this will cost over £1000, so we are working on raising money for this! |
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What we have done this year:
We campaigned to save our park from being built on. All of you supported us, you wrote a fantastic number of emails, contributed to the online discussion on Facebook, and created this park friends group. With your input, we have a website (http://friendsofhavelockrec.org/) with our events, photos, and some local history of our park. Importantly, we’re listed in Google search, and our park no longer looks unloved (online or from the street) so is less vulnerable to development. However, it’s the only non-ornamental garden park in the Town ward. I must mention the hard work our ward councillors (Nicky Dykes, Will Harmer and Michael Rutherford) put into our campaign, and our Green Party representative Roisin Robertson who supported us from the beginning. We had help from the Bromley Friends Forum and from Bromley Civic Society (who can be contacted if you’ve interest in the developments planned in the town centre http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/?cat=15).
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We start with a special mention of our Park-in-the-heart-of-the-community – which was a memorable event, if somewhat chilly. It was an inspired way to demonstrated the community support to keep our recreation ground, on Valentine’s day last year. Thanks to all those who made it happen, and everyone who braved the cold, and brought their red material so we could lay a heart out! |
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The Town Green Application. Don Scott spend many hours organising us to complete the mammoth paperwork to get this application in. One point to note, is that while this is being considered, no one else can start any kind of planning application for our park. The council is still considering it; unfortunately, the preceding Beckenham Green application failed. On the other hand, just making the application makes a very strong statement to the planning authorities. |
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Listing Havelock Rec as a community asset – Caroline kindly filled in the paperwork for this and we are proud to be the 15th place to be successfully registered under the 2012 localism act. Other entries include the Porcupine, Alexandra, Cricketers, William IV and Railway pubs, and the public conveniences in Penge! |
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The Big Lunch… it was big! The weather was great, and tons of thanks to Rebecca for organising it! See you there, again, on June 5th..! Have a look at the photos on our website! |
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Work on the park – Mandy, Kerry & Caroline managed to “source” whips to plant (the Woodland Trust and OVO energy supply them for free), so we now have some colourful dogwood at the Homesdale entrance, and a native species hedge along the chain link fence. It will create some bio-diversity to raise the value of our park to the environment! Many thanks to Stephen Tickner, not just for all the advice, but the Pulse group of volunteers who helped us plant it! |
Finally…
Thank you for all your hard work this year, and I hope you enjoy using your park for the coming year!
PS – ideas and suggestions are welcome! Email to us at friendsofhavelockrec@yahoo.co.uk
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