Lewisham Council is proposing to give NCIL grants to six of the 13 applications it received. The final decision rests with the Mayor and Cabinet when it meets next month.
The Neighbourhood Community Infrastructure Levy (NCIL) is cash the Council receives from developers, similar to Section 106 levies. This time it had £27,950.93 available for Lee Green, but received applications amounting to just over £110,000.
The six projects which have been recommended are:
- £7,500 to upgrade the play equipment in the Manor House Gardens playground. This includes a replacement cradle swing.
- £6,000 for the Christmas tree and lights on the forecourt of Hither Green station, for the next two years.
- £6,000 to fund an inter-generational gardening project on the Newstead estate. The aim is to increase the knowledge of planting, garden maintenance, growing vegetables and recycling among residents and children.
- £6,000 to Lee Fair Share, to fund weekly Coffee, Cake and Company sessions, including weekly Chair Exercise sessions.
- £2,450 to the Lee Manor Society and the Friends of Manor House Gardens to renovate the large bed at the north end of the Gardens, near Manor House library.
All six projects were endorsed by a meeting of the Lee Green Assembly last week, but still need final approval before work can begin.
Was the Big Bed section within the boundary that includes the rest of the Gardens?
When Lewisham Council were responsible for horticultural maintenance they sometimes neglected this flower bed in some years whilst planted extensively during other periods to create very stunning floral displays before it became seriously in debt. It seems odd that a possible grant may be given specifically for this single flowerbed when much more urgent and potentially dangerous issues need to be addressed for safety reasons alone.
The badly rotted joists and bearers underneath both the timber footbridge and the large viewing platform decking boards adjacent to the lake have reached the end of their life. Unless these structures are once again cordoned off in the near future, a bad accident is likely to happen. Other sections of joinery are also decomposing rapidly including the vertical diagonal criss cross bracing and the heavy top handrails some of which are only fixed with undersized 6.0 millimetre diameter woodscrews that are badly rusted. As the softwood that was installed about 25 years ago and presumably never treated with wood preservatives, it is not surprising that either a very extensive renovation is required or a complete replacement will be needed in the near future or removed completely which would be less costly.
Similarly there are several completely dead trees of various dimensions and at some point unless they are professionally felled there is likely to be a serious injury or worse to users of the Gardens.
Less obvious but possibly more dangerous are the living large ash trees that are notorious for losing supposedly large healthy branches. The ones to the south side of the lake have dropped several large branches whilst the one to the left of the large holm/ holly oaks released a very large branch that severely distorted the top round bar on the iron or steel railings and narrowly missed two women who had stopped there a few minutes earlier.
The large dead tree that is just down from the cafe has several dead branches including at least one that if it gave way would fall into the children’s’ play area.
To spend more grant money on a new piece of play equipment seems folly when a child could be seriously injured or killed by Mother Nature.
That’s fantastic news for the little ones in our community, along with a much-needed garden restoration at the entrance of Old Road and Manor House Library!
Great news for manor house gardens.