Transition Heathrow turns wasteland into community garden

1/3/2010
Com­mu­ni­ty activists from the group Tran­si­tion Heathrow have tak­en over an aban­doned mar­ket gar­den threat­ened by the third run­way. Around lunchtime, 20 peo­ple “swooped” on the land in Sip­son, one of the vil­lages due for demo­li­tion if the third run­way at Heathrow goes ahead.

1/3/2010
Com­mu­ni­ty activists from the group Tran­si­tion Heathrow have tak­en over an aban­doned mar­ket gar­den threat­ened by the third run­way. Around lunchtime, 20 peo­ple “swooped” on the land in Sip­son, one of the vil­lages due for demo­li­tion if the third run­way at Heathrow goes ahead.

More pho­tos on Tran­si­tion Heathrow’s Flickr stream.

After secur­ing the site, the group imme­di­ate­ly informed their new neigh­bours and local res­i­dents of their inten­tion to reopen the old mar­ket gar­den for the ben­e­fit of the local com­mu­ni­ty. The ‘Grow Heathrow’ project aims to encour­age and sup­port local­ly grown pro­duce in an area that once had some of the most fer­tile soils in Britain.

Tran­si­tion Heathrow has launched the project to high­light the need for a com­mu­ni­ty con­trolled food sup­ply in order to remain resilient to the impacts of peak oil and cli­mate change. It intends to use the old mar­ket gar­den not only for grow­ing, but also for activ­i­ties such as bike work­shops, clothes mak­ing, sol­i­dar­i­ty sup­port for local work­ers and direct action work­shops for peo­ple try­ing to stop the third run­way.

Tran­si­tion Heathrow mem­ber and local res­i­dent Joe Rake, described the events of the day. “Around lunchtime, a group of us walked onto the site. Once we had secured the gate, we set about telling local res­i­dents why we were there and invit­ing them to join in. We also had to start tidy­ing up as it appeared to have been used for scrap­ping cars. Since the last ten­ants were evict­ed, the site has attract­ed unsavoury char­ac­ters, so we want­ed to restart the mar­ket gar­den for the good of the local com­mu­ni­ty.”

Many of those involved in the ‘swoop’ see today’s action as a pos­i­tive way of resist­ing the third run­way whilst build­ing an alter­na­tive com­mu­ni­ty solu­tion in its place. Heathrow res­i­dent Amy Sum­mer said “We’ve been fight­ing the threat of the third run­way for years, and its blight­ed our com­mu­ni­ty. This kind of action not only helps stop expan­sion but also helps regen­er­ate the area, pro­vid­ing local skills, green jobs and organ­ic pro­duce instead.”

“This form of direct action is just as impor­tant as sit­ting on a run­way, blockad­ing the bull­doz­ers or strik­ing for more green jobs. There’s no point in grow­ing your own veg if it’s going to be cov­ered in tar­mac by BAA. At the same time there’s no point in com­mu­ni­ty resis­tance if there’s no com­mu­ni­ty left to defend. We have to do both,” she added.