Conservation area under threat at Abney Park: "

'AN INNER CITY SANCTUARY UNDER THREAT your signature can help protect it

The London Borough of Hackney is about to violate its own guidelines for preserving the tranquillity of Abney Park, the historic garden cemetery, now urban woodland, which is the heart of Stoke Newington's Conservation Area. In contravention of their own policies, planners are recommending approval of a multi-storey school building. The controversy is not over the principle of a school, but its excessive scale and insensitive design. It will be a massive over-development of its site, and will shatter the peace of this sanctuary, which has few parallels in any inner-city area of England.'

(Via Listria and Martaban Residents assoc..)

Reminds us of, many years ago of a Hackney conservation officer who assisted a factory-owner in punching a window right through it's wall into the cemetery, ooh the stories we could tell, the cemetery was secured from the council by local people to end the systematic theft of memorials and neglect of the cemetery by the council staff charged with maintaining it.."

(Via Clissold Leisure Users' News.)