Petition causes politicians to clash over under-threat health campus allotments (From Watford Observer)
Get involved: send your pictures, video, news and views by texting WO to 80360, or email us
Petition to save Farm Terrace allotments provokes angry clash between Watford politicians
11:36pm Wednesday 17th October 2012 in News
By Mike Wright, Chief Reporter
A petition to save West Watford allotments from being concreted over in the health campus project provoked an angry clash between the borough's politicians.
Watford's elected mayor, Dorothy Thornhill, was again forced to defend the decision to allow developers to build on the century-old Farm Terrace site after the 1,243-signature petition was handed into the council tonight.
The move prompted opposition Labour councillors to again accuse Watford Borough Council's Liberal Democrat administration of not doing enough to protect the site off Vicarage Road.
Earlier this year it emerged that the allotments would be built on after initially being protected in the scheme, which will see 600 new homes, new offices and a re-build of Watford General Hospital.
The allotments were sacrificed as council and health bosses said more land was needed to make the scheme economically viable for developers since the recession hit.
The debate started after 23-year-old Farm Terrace allotment-holder Jeni England handed in the petition and gave an impassioned speech to the councillors in defence of the site.
She said Farm Terrace was a unique green space that enabled its plot-holders to grow healthy and money-saving fruit and vegetables.
Miss England said members of the allotment supported the new hospital but did not accept it had to be lost and asked why other nearby sites could not also be used for the new homes.
She added that the council should be firm with the developers and tell them to work with plot-holders to ensure allotments are not concreted over.
Her speech was met with applause from Farm Terrace supporters in the public gallery and found support among opposition councillors.
Jagtar Singh Dhindsa, Labour deputy group leader, attacked the Liberal Democrat administration for painting his party as against the new hospital because it supported the allotments.
Addressing Mayor Thornhill, he said: "You said before about the Croxley Rail Link that you wanted to retain Watford Met station and in your words this would be the 'icing on the cake'.
"Well the icing in this case would be to get the hospital and the allotments."
He added people in West Watford especially needed the allotments as they did not have big gardens like residents in Nascot and Cassiobury in which to grow vegetables.
Matt Turmaine, a Labour councillor for Holywell, added his party was firmly in favour of the new hospital and that it was "cynical and shameful" to portray the heath campus as an either allotments or hospital situation.
Mayor Thornhill struck back by continuing the baking simile and saying the Labour group wanted just the icing and not the cake.
She referred to a letter from West Herts Hospitals Trust that said the allotment land was needed to "help the redevelopment of the hospital and make its delivery more certain".
The mayor said the Farm Terrace plot-holders would be given a new allotment site elsewhere in the town.
She added: "I am shocked to find a Labour group actively working against the improvement of a local hospital.
"It's disappointing that in supporting our hospital and seeking to build better homes and provide a decent neighbourhood we are accused on their website of "corporate greed".
"You are willing to put short-term opportunism before the long term health and wellbeing of our town."
Towards the end of her speech the mayor was interrupted by heckles of "shame" and shouts from the public gallery.
Comments(32)
Reg Edit
says...
9:17am Thu 18 Oct 12
We need to get rid of this Liberal mafia and get some people in who actually care about the town and not just their party.
If the council wanted to save Farm Terrace Allotments they could. They just don't care.
This phrase "help the redevelopment of the hospital and make its delivery more certain" - we don't need more certainty, mere certainty would be enough.
This is a clear case of developers milking the town, and the Liberal administration rolling over to let them.
Dotty, you should resign if you can't do the job properly. You are well past your sell-by date.
Mike Watford
says...
9:21am Thu 18 Oct 12
Also, the plans are for more open green space at the end of the hospital build, open to all, than there is at present. (the allotments are a closed site).
And the comment about garden space in west Watford, doesn't stack up. I live there in a terrace house and like the other 300 surrounding houses, we have a 60 foot long garden.
Reg Edit
says...
9:58am Thu 18 Oct 12
There is a difference.
I am in favour of local allotments wherever possible and required. I am not in favour of overdevelopment. I cannot therefore be a Liberal councillor, thankfully!
Andrew1963
says...
10:03am Thu 18 Oct 12
Mike Watford
says...
10:24am Thu 18 Oct 12
lilliom
says...
10:26am Thu 18 Oct 12
This is happening in Watford, this would happen to any town in need of hard cash:
-For the good and well being of the community. Watford town needs your green space, for the hospital who is desperately in needs of funds for its regeneration.
The intention seems clear and honourable.
The community of plot holders get involved in discussions with town hall, hospital, and developer representatives. It sounds good, positive, to start with.
-Nothing is set in stone is the leitmotiv, we may not touch the allotments. Would you care to see where the private residences and retail units would go on the map?
The plot holders start relaxing, contributing to the landscape and sustainability dialogue they have been offered to participate.
Then the mayor, Dorothy, makes a speech, a blurred kind of speech:
-This is gross representation!
She reads a letter: Hospital needs allotment to build on it.
Not quite sure what she's articulating there. We go back to dark ages where transparency goes out of the window.
Back on yo-yo mode, the plot holders did understand the allotments were needed, but that was Kier who wanted the site, it was not part of a hospital redeployment.
Sanity 750
says...
10:27am Thu 18 Oct 12
Personally I think the Health Campus has become unviable.
If the Council have to except building on a floodplain to make the plan financially viable, I wonder if any of these plans will happen. I certainly wouldn’t want to buy a flat on stilts in the middle of a flood plan.
TRT
says...
10:46am Thu 18 Oct 12
Well, would she care to provide an example of short-term opportunism so we can compare? Like turning over an established allotment site to developers who would otherwise pull out of a deal because their profits might fall as a result of a 5 to 10 year downturn in the economy?
Pot, meet kettle.
dontknowynot
says...
1:10pm Thu 18 Oct 12
TRT
says...
1:45pm Thu 18 Oct 12
John Dowdle
says...
2:08pm Thu 18 Oct 12
They should be told "No". If they then say they will not go through with the development then invite Watford Community Housing Trust to take the development over and build 300 new homes for Watford people.
If this means there is insufficient money available to develop the hospital site then we will just have to wait a few more years until they become available for future development.
Toshhorn
says...
2:16pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Simple choice allotments or hospital, let the majority win and have their way.
I vote for hospital and move the allotments
TRT
says...
2:32pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Why _can't_ we find a way to do both, eh? Trade off some planning consents for other sites for the 300 extra units to make up the profits, if an independent audit says that those 300 are required for viability?
Andrew1963
says...
2:37pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Mike Watford wrote:No, I said in the local area- look at the Structural plan for housing planned for West Watford. Health Campus - 500 now increased to 600 flats on Health Campus (2007 plan). 100 at Rembrandt house; 96 if Croxley rail link goes ahead; 14 at Tolpits Lane; 14 at King Georges Avenue; 10 at Whippendell road; 4 next door to Red Lion on Vicarage Road. Thats 824. With possibly 85 at Wiggenhall road if the depot closes (which it will because the council wants to out source the refuse/street cleaning) - 900+. And of course we already have 100's built at the football ground and on Vicarage Road on the garage site just over the railway bridge. Plus nearby there are 129 built on Watford Springs and 62 at Water Lane on the old Labour exchange. Another 191 on the doorstep of West Watford. Opposite Bushey station by Bushey arches and Oxhey Park another 65. Watford Junction goods yard is going to have 1,500. No wonder Watford Council reports it is building twice as many homes as the East of England plan requires 633 in 2010/11 - 91% flats, 47% one bed flats. No wonder Watford Council is predicting that by 2017 it would have seen 34% more homes built than the structural plan requires.
Andy: The hospital and council have nver said 600 to 1000 flats - I think you have made the higher figure up!
TRT
says...
2:56pm Thu 18 Oct 12
John Dowdle
says...
4:08pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Watford still has the highest council tax rate in Hertfordshire, even with all the added revenue from increased home building development. Where does it all go? Why do we not benefit through reduced council tax demands?
TRT
says...
4:15pm Thu 18 Oct 12
John Dowdle
says...
4:19pm Thu 18 Oct 12
TRT
says...
4:22pm Thu 18 Oct 12
clarkie750
says...
7:41pm Thu 18 Oct 12
TRT
says...
7:46pm Thu 18 Oct 12
fugu
says...
7:53pm Thu 18 Oct 12
fugu
says...
8:01pm Thu 18 Oct 12
TRT wrote:But there will be an increase in Hertfordshire's share of the council tax. The extra funding for the Croxley Rail link is going to be paid for with a loan that will be re-paid by an increase in council tax.
John, that's seriously only a tiny fraction. 1,000 extra out of, what, 50 - 60,000 households? There's been no rise in WBC's share of the council tax bill in three or four years.
fugu
says...
8:04pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Steve, Abbots Langley
says...
10:54pm Thu 18 Oct 12
John Dowdle
says...
11:50pm Thu 18 Oct 12
Here's a cunning plan: why don't we let HCC pay for our nice new shiny railway then leave and become a London Borough. That way, we get the shiny new railway but leave the bill with HCC to pay off - good, eh?
As for the hospital, why can't they borrow the money for enhancing the hospital from HM Treasury or the Bank of England - it would work out very much cheaper at the current central bank lending rate of 0.5%.
There is another question in all of this, of course. Why are we being forced to solicit contributions from developers for the hospital?
Like many others, I have paid PAYE and national insurance contributions all my working life. Why is some of that money not being applied towards building a new hospital?
It really is a scandal that private sector money is being used to build public hospitals after innumerable workers have paid into a national insurance scheme to ensure - among other things - that we have a local district general hospital fit for purpose. Why else do we pay taxes and contributions?
clarkie750
says...
7:51am Fri 19 Oct 12
And the other thing that seems to have been forgotten is that the allotments will be reprovided elsewhere.
TRT
says...
10:32am Fri 19 Oct 12
Have you got an allotment, Clarkie750? Have you spent hours and hours wheelbarrowing manure onto it? Double digging the manure in? Picking out stones, bricks, roots, metal fragments? Picking out the weeds on a daily basis as they come up in phases over the whole year?
It's about getting the soil into the right condition for growing crops. It takes many years to get it right.
You need a little over four thousand tonnes of top soil to cover an acre of land to a depth of 2 feet. At £75 a tonne for top quality top soil, £60 a tonne for standard grade, you're looking at a quarter of a million pounds per acre. So, do you think they're going to pay for topsoil? No. The most they are likely to do at a new site is send in some bulldozers to rake off the top foot of vegetation leaving a near dead subsoil layer that will take years of treatment with organic matter to revitalise. And the only neighbouring land is either flood plain (which would actually be quite good soil, but wouldn't be much use without flood defences which would only shove flooding problems further down or up stream), or potentially contaminated land previously used for railway sidings and industrial units.
Farm terrace is where it is now because the tenants of a previous site were evicted to make way for housing. Allotments on the west side of the site (Willow Lane) were closed in the 80s to allow for the hospital's expansion plans... why can't the same area be found from elsewhere? Perhaps because they cannot legally build houses on the flood plains anymore? Why can't the council acquire some of the land at the Fischer estate? Build some of the research facilities there? Perhaps that eyesore of an industrial estate doesn't fit in with the aesthetic vision for the health campus? (anaesthetic - literally causing numbness and lack of appreciation of beauty. How appropriate for the hospital site.)
Dotty is well able to turn a blind eye to the slum and scum areas of the Borough, but when the Parade starts looking a little tired... it was in that About Watford magazine - I don't have a copy to hand, but it read something like "it is immediately apparent that the Parade has lacked investment" and she takes £4m out of the public purse. Well let me tell you it was resurfaced and re-landscaped just 12 years previously, whereas the Cardiff Road and Wiggenhall Yard areas have been entirely overlooked since the second world war and are now little more than an embarrassment to the town! It's a good job no-one who doesn't have to ever goes down the far end of Cardiff Road, the sight might put a potential investor off.
Reg Edit
says...
11:34am Fri 19 Oct 12
John Dowdle wrote:I pay taxes so that I may have access to a hospital if required.
I think fugu is absolutely right. My - admittedly very rough - estimate is that HCC's contribution to the proposed Croxley Rail Link will run to around £100 million. This amount, with added interest, will be being paid off by Hertfordshire council tax payers for decades to come.
Here's a cunning plan: why don't we let HCC pay for our nice new shiny railway then leave and become a London Borough. That way, we get the shiny new railway but leave the bill with HCC to pay off - good, eh?
As for the hospital, why can't they borrow the money for enhancing the hospital from HM Treasury or the Bank of England - it would work out very much cheaper at the current central bank lending rate of 0.5%.
There is another question in all of this, of course. Why are we being forced to solicit contributions from developers for the hospital?
Like many others, I have paid PAYE and national insurance contributions all my working life. Why is some of that money not being applied towards building a new hospital?
It really is a scandal that private sector money is being used to build public hospitals after innumerable workers have paid into a national insurance scheme to ensure - among other things - that we have a local district general hospital fit for purpose. Why else do we pay taxes and contributions?
I do not believe it is right for dotty to do a dodgy deal with a housing developer, apparently building on a flood plain, to get some money towards the hospital. It makes both of them look dodgy.
If a hospital is required, then it should be for the government to pay for it. That's it. Where's Harrington in all this? It should be his job to get this built if it is necessary to have a new hospital. It's a matter of principle.
Now, here's a note of caution.
Remember the Watford Springs debacle, where they built a very nice shiny pool complex as a sweetener for building the Harlequin?
It was great for a few years, but then it turned out some very short-sighted construction had been used which meant the council had little choice but to close it down rather than repair it. Surprise surprise, it's now housing.
If the council/developer partnership can't get a swimming pool build right, then I do not want them having anything to do with building something as important as a hospital, particularly if it is on a flood plain.
clarkie750
says...
12:05pm Fri 19 Oct 12
TRT
says...
12:24pm Fri 19 Oct 12
Sanity 750 says...
8:14am Thu 18 Oct 12