Ruth Carruthers: The Meadow
How can communities stay in touch with nature when city councils keep selling off green space?
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Much of the blame for the environmental degradation of our planet is put down to the fact that we have lost touch with the natural world and therefore the urge to protect it. This seems particularly true for those of us who live in cities, and while we may enjoy sitting down to watch a bit of David Attenborough once in a while, our first-hand experience of nature is often limited to a summer's afternoon drinking in the park, or cleaning out a mouse trap.
It is also thought by many that, when it comes to preserving nature, it’s not only important to connect people with the environment, but simultaneously to each other. This is a subject E.F. Schumacher touches upon in his 1973 masterpiece Small is Beautiful, and more recently explained by Alastair McIntosh in his latest book Rekindling Community: Connecting People, Environment and Spirituality, which draws on Schumacher’s teachings. What’s more, so much of the current green movement is geared towards encouraging people to integrate more with their community, and to live, grow and eat more locally. The Guardian newspaper website is even advertising a competition to become a green community hero right now.
For city dwellers, integrating with the environment and community often requires a common space, such the North Kelvinside Meadow in Glasgow. What’s now known as ‘The Meadow’ was previously a disused playing field, that lay dormant for two decades, and had become an overgrown dumping ground and drug den until local residents took it over and transformed it in 2008. With hard work and a bit of vision, the area is now a multi-use community green space including a raised bed allotment, an orchard, and a wild meadow that attracts people of all ages.
But despite not looking at it for 20 years, Glasgow City Council now plan to sell the land to a property developer for the construction of 115 flats. Yes people need places to live, and I’m sure the Council need the money right now just as much as anybody, but to me the Council are behaving like spoilt children who don’t want to play with a certain toy until they see someone else having fun with it, then suddenly they want it back. And in this case they want it back so they can sell it on.
I’m sure if you asked any member of Glasgow City Council about their plans for the future they would say, “Yes, we want to reduce crime, yes we want you to integrate more with your community and yes, we want you to care more for the environment.” However, it seems they just don’t want people to do that here.
With waiting lists for allotments growing and people turning to ‘guerrilla gardening’ in order to get their green fix these days, it seems such a shame that this inspiring project may soon be flattened. After all, the word Glasgow means Dear Green Space in Gaelic - don’t the Council want to keep it that way?
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The Meadow (text) by Ruth Carruthers is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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