The East London Gardening Society (ELGS) is still campaigning hard to get a pollution-reducing Forest Garden included in the Bishopsgate Goods Yard redevelopment.
Planting on this scale is using a traditional method to improve air quality, and it would have a good impact on the whole Shoreditch area. The ELGS vision is for the garden to be run as a community park, but one which would see the slow emergence of a forest landscape.
At the moment, it seems that the developers are considering some woodland: but a formal, artificial attempt to impose a managed woodland is a different concept from encouraging a diverse forest environment to emerge. A formal woodland would consume space and resources (such as water), whereas a forest garden would emerge in greater harmony with given resources.
The developers are also thinking about providing communal growing space. Again, this can eat up space and consume lots of water (no puns intended). A communal growing space usually translates as a restricted area, ironically – an area where the community as a whole is barred by fencing from small areas which some individuals have been lucky enough to acquire for their own individual growing.
Nearly 200 people have formally signed the ELGS petition, but we need many more informal supporters to press the buttons and add their names. Please take a minute to sign up now.
•There is more information about the ELGS campaign on their website, or you can go direct to the petition on: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/795/495/241/put-a-forest-garden-on-top-of-bishopgate-goods-yard/