An event application has been filed with the council to hold a funfair second half of June this year. We need your support to object to this – please write to your local councillors so that they will file their objection on your behalf.
We all know what damage the circus did last year to the common, which damage has not been fully restored (https://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/anyone-else-pretty-non...):
If we want to save the little that is left we need to loudly object.
Reasons for our objection:
For those living close to Ducketts Common - you will hear the funfair's music as they will apply for a music licence also.
If you think and feel like us that the last remaining areas of the wildflower meadow should not be subjected to such an onslaught for little gain, then please write to your local councillor this week so that they can submit their objection on your behalf to the council.
Thank you for your support and interest in local issues!
Tags for Forum Posts: Ducketts Common, damage, funfair, local, objection, park, support, wildflower meadow
On revisiting the council's current fees tables I discovered that a funfair does not count as a commercial event but is grouped in a separate category (this would have netted the council about GBP30k). That means the council's gains for a 'major event' in the category 'funfair/circus' would only be around GBP4,000 including all admin fees. That seems a paltry sum for the potential damaged inflicted on the common.
Some visual help of the impact of large events on the common. Last year the circus parked its waggons right next to the wildflower meadow and circus staff used the meadow as a walkway. They killed off all spring bulbs (snowdrops, crocuses and fritillary) and all wildflowers in that area. For people not involved in establishing the meadow it is hard to image the damage done until the flowers (or their no show) bear witness. In that sense I attach photo taken yesterday during the sunny afternoon. It is a meadow area next to Green Lanes which is on the right hand side. At the bottom of the photo plenty of crocuses are visible - this is how the meadow should look at this time of the year. Above between the first tree and the next tree the meadow area only shows brown leaves with patches of grass. All there is in terms of flowers is a small group of crocuses close to the next tree. The blue line is the meadow boundary (the little trench). So, from the meadow boundary on the left to the hedge on the right this should be a sea of crocuses just like at the bottom - both areas were planted at the same time. The area with only grass and leaves has no crocuses left because of the circus destroyed them.
Alec I just commented on your other post before I saw this about the damage done to the wildflower areas by the circus last year. I objected after the event last year and asked a local councillor to raise our concerns
https://www.harringayonline.com/forum/topics/the-state-of-ducketts-...
I will certainly take it up with her again.
Thank you to all who contacted their local councillors - we had two of them objecting to the fun fair application. Your voices were certainly heard.
The sad news is that the council has decided to grant an events licence as they are keen for the fun fair to come. So in about 2 weeks' time we will have Mannings back on Ducketts Common. I understand that there was some consideration what to do about the meadow but in the end the long relationship of Mannings with the council seemed to have won the day and Mannings got their date in June, the main flowering period of the meadow (we proposed a date from August onwards which would have been past the seed ripening period of the meadow and damage would have been little).
That said it might not make much of a difference as we lost so much of the meadow last year already and the last good areas were further decimated by the expansion of the Hampden Road gate and will be suffocated by the wild barley that was again left standing during the last lawn cuts, so, sadly, there is little meadow left which is worthwhile protecting.
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