When life begins in the Cemetery…

HOW DO YOU think of Tower Hamlets? Is it a green borough, with acres of grass, splendid trees and havens for urban wildlife? Or is it a collection of parallel dual carriageways taking people from east to west, channels built to collect emissions to poison our children?

The reality is probably a mixture of – but not necessarily a balance between – the two.

•Big roads cut through Tower Hamlets, and they take thousands of cars through the borough each day – cars that never stop. The Council is trying to cut down on road traffic, but it’s the local resident who is feeling the pinch.

In the past, the Council has been sensitive to the needs of car owners who live in Tower Hamlets – but in the last four years or so, residents have become the easy victims rather than the beneficiaries of Council policies. With new parking policies and splashing the cash to fence off small areas to discourage cars, Council policy is provoking a debate that will rage for a while yet.

•On the other side of the coin, Tower Hamlets has some brilliant pockets of green which are regularly enjoyed by residents (human and others) and local plant life. We have to mention the Mudchute and Victoria Park, but vying for top place has to be Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

The Park is a unique area – a place where nature has fought back to reclaim a space previously devoted to the lives, and afterlives, of humans. Its staff adjudicate over the competing needs of the Park’s animal and plant residents with those of its human visitors, assisted by a group of volunteers, the Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park.

Did the Park survive the Lockdown? What events have returned to bring the humans back to the Park? And will the facility survive the threat of the neighbouring gasworks being developed? Tune in to 20:20 Vision on the Vodcasts channel tonight and find out whether the Cemetery Park is still a breath of fresh air – or whether Lockdown and redevelopment are choking it to death.

•Tune in to 20:20 vision
Tower Hamlets: seeing it the Green Way
Host: East London News editor Jenny Fisher
Guest: Ken Greenway, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park
20:20 Vision is live streamed on the Vodcasts Facebook page at 10pm on Tuesday, 1st September 2020 and is thereafter available as a video on demand. Tune in here:
Vodcasts

•Read more reports about the Cemetery Park:
Cemetery Park