NORTH KELVIN MEADOW CAMPAIGN

On the first anniversary of its formation, the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign  has been awarded a Certificate of Merit as part of Beautiful Scotland’s Neighbourhood Awards. Karen Chung, Treasurer of the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign, collected the award today at a ceremony in Motherwell Concert Hall.

The certificate was awarded as recognition for the environmental and community improvements the Campaign has made to a previously derelict site. The group won particular praise for tackling problems such as litter, graffiti and vandalism, and for positive efforts to communicate and engage with a wide cross-section of the local community.

Over recent months the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign has been threatened with eviction by Glasgow City Council, which wants to sell the land to a developer for flats. The land has never been built on and has always been a community resource. The campaign to retain the land as a community green space has attracted support from a wide cross-section of people, including MSPs Patrick Harvie (Green), Bob Doris (SNP) and Robert Brown (Lib Dem), as well as a petition of over 800 signatures.

Beautiful Scotland Assessor Brian Chennell praised the group’s work, saying:

“The project is at a very early stage but does have great potential, given the number of people involved and the size and location of the site. If they had the cooperation of Glasgow City Council, the group could develop the meadow into an alternative community area for the benefit of residents.”

Patrick Harvie MSP said:

“There can’t be many community groups being threatened with eviction one day and winning awards the next. I am immensely proud of the work the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign have done over the last year, work which I know is inspiring people across Glasgow and more widely.

“This award is yet another clear message to Glasgow City Council – it must now be time to abandon your efforts to undermine the good work the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign is doing and instead get behind their efforts to improve their neighbourhood. The administration appear to have forgotten who they were elected to serve, but hopeully this award will refresh their memory.”

Click here to read the BBC article regarding the installing of bat boxes

Click here to read the Sunday Herald article regarding the installing of bat boxes

Click here on the link to view the Herald Article on Scotland’s allotment summit published on 11 October 2009.

We all had a very pleasant afternoon today planting 475 bulbs in various parts of the Meadow. If you have any extra then please do come down and plant some.  Turnout today was 24 in total. The extra 75 bulbs were very kindly donated by Gill. Thanks to all who came down – hopefully we’ll see our results next spring / summer.

Some other misc topics on the go:

* We’ve signed up to www.1010uk.org as the Meadow is a good place to do what we can on that subject. For example continuing to plant the Community Fruit Orchard – eventually we want to plant 200 Blackberry bushes, Raspberry bushes and Apples trees along the Kelbourne street side. So far we’ve planted 12. Its a beginning! We’re in the process of applying for grants to buy the bushes / trees.

* We’re in the December edition of Grow Your Own Magazine (obviously not out for a while).

* We been interviewed and might be in the Holyrood online magazine soon that deals with that place of the same name.

Hi all

Your all invited to a bulb planting event at North Kelvin Meadow on
Sunday 11th October at 2pm. That’s a week this Sunday so mark it in
your dairies.

We’ve got 400 bulbs all ready to plant. If all goes well the Meadow
should be a wash with colour next spring / summer.

Things to bring?
Yourself! Bulbs should be handled with gloves so bring an old pair.
Bring a trowel or spade if you have one (we have a few spare). That
it.

How long will the event last?
Don’t worry about coming down for a long time  - 30 minutes to an 1
hour is all that’s required.

How to plant a bulb?
Each bulb needs to be planted to a depth of 3 times its size. So dig a
small hole and place the bulb with its top facing upwards. If not sure
what is the top then plant it on its side. Cover with soil making sure
there are no obvious air pockets. If you need some decent soil to
surround the bulb then take some from the big white bags in the far
corner. Its as easy as that! What’s more, many of them should flower
year after year.

Can’t make that time?
Feel free to plant bulbs at other times if you have them. The more the merrier!

What’s the latest with the Land?
Not really that much! The Council still want to sell it, but haven’t
found a buyer. The local community increasingly see it as a place that
shouldn’t be built on. As the land is used more as a green space by
the local community the case strengthens to keep it as such.

Hope to see you then.

Meadow carrots: the Council plans to give them the chop - and we're not talking about julienning

The North Kelvin Meadow Campaign has learnt that Glasgow City Council has made plans to destroy the Meadow without informing the campaign group. Destructive actions could be taken as early as Monday, 21 September 2009.

After the Council’s legal action against the campaign group in July resulted only in two named individuals – Douglas Peacock, Campaign chair, and Karen Chung, treasurer – being prevented from putting up bat boxes and installing raised beds, it seems the Council went back to the courts in order to obtain a ‘decree of ejection’ – but didn’t tell us.

Wrongly addressed

The matter has been handled most peculiarly. Although Karen is appealing the interdict against her, and the Council obviously has her and Douglas’ contact details, papers relating to the ‘decree of ejection’ were not sent to them, but were instead addressed to ‘North Kelvinside Green Space, Clouston Street, Glasgow G20′ by the Sheriff Court – presumably the address given to the Court by the Council. Had it not been for the good offices of the enterprising Clouston Street postie – who delivered the papers to a well-known local personality, who passed them on to the campaign group – we might have known nothing about it.

Something is rotten in those marble-lined City Chambers, wethinks – unless we are to assume there is no one at Glasgow City Council who knows how to address an envelope properly. And it all doesn’t seem quite in order from a legal point of view. Ms Chung’s lawyer has therefore contacted the Council asking for clarification and that no eviction take place until a meeting can be arranged between the campaign group and the Council.

Watch this space!

To read the press release click here

For an object lesson in how NOT to address and envelope, click here.

Questions have been asked in the Scottish Parliament about the use of derelict land by local communities. The questions posed was:

Bill Kidd (MSP): Asks the Scottish Executive what support the Cabinet Secretary for Rural Affairs and the Environment provides to local authorities to allow local residents to make use of unused derelict lands in urban areas for the purpose of community growing projects, gardens and orchards. (S3O-7631)

Click here to see the transcript of the Minister’s response and the ensuing debate

Bill mentions the North Kelvin Meadow in his supplementary question as an example.

Who would have thought it, but its true: we’re in the Beautiful Scotland! Judges come out this Wednesday, 2nd September. So, who knows: if we can get a decent day of sunshine, and the poppies, sunflowers and all the other plants bloom that day, then we’re in with a chance. So many of you have worked so hard planting all these things and picking up the litter etc – just being entered for this great award is something you should be proud of. Indeed, when you see where we’ve come from within a year you can believe anything is possible!

The award is a relatively new initiative in Scotland, designed for groups making local environmental improvements in their area, particularly (but not exclusively) in urban areas. There are additional awards for improving and encouraging biodiversity, so this is our chance to show off our wild orchids and poppies, and hope our resident bees and butterflies are out in force when the judge visits next Wednesday…

For more information click here

Also, please note the new pictures now on the website under Our Story in Pictures.

Gardeners with Meadow produce

Douglas Peacock, chairman of the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign, and Karen Chung, treasurer, appeared before a Court 1A packed with Meadow supporters at Glasgow Sheriff Court yesterday to defend an interim interdict brought against them by Glasgow City Council. The interdict was sought by the Council to try and prevent Karen, Douglas and the campaign group from cleaning up and improving the derelict land on the site of the former Clouston Street Playing Fields – now known as the North Kelvin Meadow – ahead of a proposed sale to a property developer.

Absurd legal action

The court action, which has appalled local residents and been described as “absurd” by Patrick Harvie MSP, saw Glasgow City Council get the campaign group’s name wrong in the legal documentation and in court, and radically reduce the terms of the interdict they were demanding before a not-very-impressed sheriff.

The sheriff was asked to consider such weighty matters as bat boxes and illegal mixed salads, as the Council’s solicitor attempted to read out in court private emails sent by campaign group members – presumably obtained by the solicitor from the Glasgow City Council Stasi files. He was cut off pretty sharply by the bench: “Yes, yes. I have them in front of me.”

The sheriff was asked to consider
such weighty matters as bat boxes
and illegal mixed salads

The proceedings were mercifully leavened by the sheriff’s nice line in dry wit. Our favourite comedy moment was the following exchange. Sheriff to Douglas: “What exactly are bat boxes?” Douglas: “Boxes for bats, M’Lord.” Sheriff: “Ah yes. Perhaps I should have been able to work that out.”

The result is that Douglas and Karen only are prevented from putting up bat boxes on the land and installing raised beds. Douglas and Karen can continue to tend their existing beds, and the rest of the group can continue as before. The sheriff said Douglas and Karen “had done only good”.

Karen will seek to have this limited interdict overturned on appeal. She will base her case on a motion passed by Glasgow City Council in October 2008 which encourages the public to make use of derelict land for crop production in the period before development takes place.

Lack of consultation

In his closing remarks on Friday, Douglas reminded the court that this was the first time the community group had been in the same room as the Council – despite the group’s repeated requests for a meeting and attempts by Bob Doris MSP to broker this. This gives the lie to the Council’s claim to have consulted with the local community.

The Council’s claim that the community had a choice about what would happen to the land and chose the residential development the Council favours is also disingenuous. At the consultation stage, the community was, in fact, presented with four broadly similar proposals, all residential in nature. It opted for the ‘least worst’.

“Now the community have chosen what they really want,” said Douglas outside the Sheriff Court on Friday. “Local people have voted with their feet – and their trowels – and chosen a green space.”

Local people have voted with their feet
- and their trowels -
and chosen a green space

Furthermore, although the Council claims the money from the sale of the land will be used to refurbish playing facilities at the corner of Queen Margaret Drive and Maryhill Road, in fact only a fraction (less than one-tenth) will be used for this purpose. What will happen to the rest? There has been no word from the Council about this. Could it be that local people are being deprived of their green space to pay off the debts the Council has run up?

To read the press release about the court case click here

To read an article about the court action published in the Herald on Saturday, 22 August click here

Karen and Douglas would just like to THANK everyone who gave their support and especially to all those that made it to the Court. So many we packed it out !!

Thanks.