SLM Digest 14-10-15

There's a chill in the air but the marsh skies are still blue... View this email in your browser SLM Weekly Digest Keep Our Marshes Open and Green! This week our queen of puns is away so I'll do my best to keep up the punning fun:-) Brownfield to Bloom: Members of Hackney Marshes User Group and Save Lea Marshes met with Hackney Council and the council’s chosen landscape architect this week to discuss plans to transform the car park, which was not granted retrospective planning permission, into a habitat for nature. The agreement reached was for a mosaic habitat that is as natural as possible with minimal planting and no hard surfacing. If everything goes as planned, there will be the creation of a new brownfield site of 0.25 hectares on the site of the former car park, which now left to grow wild, is already home to over 60 species! Cull Culled - The Daily Mail don't like it but most animal lovers will: The 'humane' cull of foxes proposed for Clissold Park, Hackney has been halted by activists with a successful online petition. The RSPCA and experts in fox welfare said the cull would be neither justified nor effective, but simply cruel: https://www.change.org/p/hackney-council-reconsider-the-cull-of-foxes-in-clissold-park We Need Space to Play!  - Another important petition in the borough of Hackney is a demand to stop the sell off of children’s playgrounds at Benthal and Nightingale primary schools for luxury flats development: Do You Dig It? - On Monday the Tate unveiled its inaugural commission for the Turbine Hall. Entitled 'Empty Lot' this art piece consists of triangular wooden planters of earth dug up from different areas of London, from Peckham Rye to Buckingham Palace. Earth has been taken from Hackney Marshes, the Lee Valley Park and the Olympic Park. The idea is to see what wild flowers will grow from this earth, although we're baffled as to why you can also spread seeds there! Let's hope they didn't dig too deep, we know too well what's under the marshes! http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/oct/12/tate-modern-cultivates-interest-latest-turbine-hall-show-abraham-cruzvillegas Go Wild! - Grow Wild is looking for projects that use native wild flowers and plants innovatively to bring colour and wildlife to their local area. They should offer volunteering opportunities to young people aged 12-25 and also to over 25s. Projects should also think creatively about sharing stories, photos and activities from their spaces. Supported by the Big Lottery Fund and led by Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Grow Wild wants to motivate communities, friends, neighbours and individuals to come together to transform local spaces by sowing, growing and enjoying UK native wild flowers. To find out more, go to:http://www.lemosandcrane.co.uk/lemos&crane/index.php?id=237793 Speaking Up for The Marshes - continuing Katy's great legacy, an interview with Save Lea Marshes member Abi all about our ongoing campaign will appear in the Waltham Forest Echo very soon. Events A wonderful benefit for Save Southwark Woods will be taking place this Sunday at The Ivy House, 40 Stuart Road, SE15 3BE: http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk/benefit-gig/4590761321   Share Tweet Forward Copyright © 2015 Save Lea Marshes, All rights reserved. You signed up for this email by contacting us directly or ticking a sign up sheet on a petition. Our mailing address is: Save Lea Marshes c/o The Hornbeam Centre 458 Hoe St Walthamstow, London E17 9AH United Kingdom