Southwark and all of London needs MORE natural, wild places for health, wellbeing and kids to play - not less. Say “NO NEW BURIAL” in the Honor Oak Nature Corridor
Dear Friends,
URGENT - Please object to development in the Honor Oak Nature Corridor
Deadline Midnight April 3rd
Southwark has applied to take 3 more acres of Honor Oak Nature Corridor next to Honor Oak Park Station for 1,022 sterile burial plots.
The Old Nursery site (Area B) is Metropolitan Open Land in a Grade II SINC. It is home to hedgehogs, owls, bats, reptiles, butterflies, bees and many other rare and common species.
Southwark wants rows of sterile burial plots like on all the land they took from Honor Oak Recreation Ground in 2000 and 2010. For just a few year of burial. When will it stop?
In the 2016 consultation, 86% of residents opposed all burial on the site. Nature land is far too valuable for burial plots.
Please object here. Please also send us and Cllr Ian Wingfield a copy of your objection if you can:
ian.wingfield@southwark.gov.uk
savesouthwarkwoods@gmail.com
Below are some reasons for objecting you might want to include, also here:
Area B should be declared a Nature Reserve as part of the Honor Oak Nature Corridor because:
- It is Metropolitan Open Land in a Grade II SINC, home to hedgehogs, owls, bats, reptiles, butterflies, bees and many other rare and common species of wildlife
- This is rare inner city nature land never used for burial
- Burial will lock up the use of this nature space forever, preventing any other public use
- 1,022 burial plots with rows of headstones on concrete plinths will destroy three acres of Honor Oak Nature Corridor, for just a few years of burial
- In your 2016 Consultation, 86% opposed any burial on this site
- Your application contradicts your own policy which recognises that biodiverse habitats are rare and valuable to Southwark residents and should be protected
- This land was promised for public community benefit, then swapped to ‘protect’ the Rec Ground which Southwark now refuses to guarantee
- The borough faces a 10% increase in population, all of whom will require access to more biodiverse green spaces not less
- Southwark residents are experiencing the same public health crises as other boroughs, including obesity and the impacts of deadly air pollution. The Council should be protecting and increasing natural wild places for residents’ mental and physical health and wellbeing
- Nature land is far too valuable to use for burial. A few years’ lawn burial plots followed by decades of sterility are no replacement for the beauty, tranquility and delight of nature
- Land is for the living. Our children need more wild green space to play in and learn and experience nature - not less
Thanks again for all your support - we couldn’t do it without you.
Blanche Cameron
Chair, Friends of Camberwell Cemeteries
The Save Southwark Woods Campaign
07731 304 966
savesouthwarkwoods@gmail.com
www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk
@southwarkwoods