PARK USE BY SCHOOLS - Stop our parks becoming noisy school playgrounds

Published: 30 July, 2010

• YOUR article regarding the use of parks by schools (‘Can we play in the garden please, sir?’ July 23) loses sight of the fact that the Violet Hill Garden, at the centre of the current dispute, is tiny in comparison to the other local parks such as Paddington Recreation Ground.

Yet even there local residents who simply want to enjoy a stroll in the park are being driven out by school activities.

The Violet Hill Garden has always been a haven of tranquillity in the heart of St John’s Wood, where local residents, particularly those without a garden of their own, could enjoy their peace and quiet of what was a beautiful space.

Since the intrusion of the Abercorn Place School, the council has ceased planting the large beds (which border three sides of the park) to the standard for which they earned a considerable reputation, and have instead left them to overgrown shrubbery protected from rampaging children by ugly fencing.

The lawn, which used to state “keep off the grass” now has a sign “no ball games” and is frequently littered with food packaging.

The park-keepers are clearly fearful of taking the children or their carers to task.

On one occasion I asked a mother of an Abercorn pupil to stop her child tearing the branches off a miniature tree, only to be told: “You should not be here at this time of day, get back in your box!”

The Abercorn Place School can well afford to move to premises where it has its own playground and the fact that the council has agreed to allow some 40 children, together with staff, mothers or au pairs, into the park for an hour at a time is questionable to say the least.

We appear to be living in a culture where anyone criticising children, football or bicycles is pilloried in the interest of political ambition.

The right to quiet enjoyment by the remainder, and majority, of society is totally overlooked.

J MARSHALL
Langford Court, NW8