Park needs its Friends

Published: 11 February, 2011

• THIS year will see the 25th anniversary of the wonderful Gillespie Park festival – if it goes ahead. 

Gillespie Park itself only exists thanks to a community campaign 25 years ago to “save the sidings”, following which the park was sold to the council for a pound for the benefit of the community.

This week, Islington Council’s executive met to agree to set this year’s budget, which will slash the council’s sustainability spending by £750,000. 

We know this will have significant effects on Gillespie Park, Islington’s second-largest green space, and on the Ecology Centre there. 

But we don’t know yet what these effects will be, because despite increasingly urgent requests from the Friends of Gillespie Park, councillors have not given details of what is proposed.

At an emergency meeting on Tuesday evening (just prior to the setting of the budget), further pressure from the Friends and from other concerned residents led to council officials agreeing to meet the Friends to discuss the options before these are finalised. 

Thus, we hope that the Friends of Gillespie Park will now be able to use their 25 years’ knowledge and experience of the park and the Ecology Centre to help find the best possible way of safeguarding them for the community and future generations.

EMNMA DIXON
Friends of Gillespie Park