The results are in, and the 10 winners in Boris's park popularity vote have been announced. You probably haven't heard of many of them, but there's likely to be one near you that's won some dosh. They each get £400000 to spend on things like playground equipment, wild flower meadows and restored waterways, and in return Boris pledges not to push a free newspaper through your letterbox for the next three years. One additional park has also been selected (by a mysterious "panel of experts") to get a whopping £2m, and that's BurgessPark in Southwark. Good choice, panel of experts. Meanwhile there are also a lot of losers - the 37 London parks which were nominated but have won absolutely no money at all. You can see the full voting figures here, and the ten winners here (including details of what's planned in each park).
As an illustration, I've picked one of the winning parks to compare and contrast.
That's rather different to how the area is today. I can't imagine many nature lovers making a special effort to visit Little Wormwood Scrubs, especially when there's the more interesting expanse of big Wormwood Scrubs nextdoor. You'd never stumble upon LWS by accident, tucked away between two railways and a deprived Victorian housing estate on the edge of Hammersmith & Fulham. It's a park of two halves, the lower section bland and more municipal, the upper section more overgrown and remote. You might let your kids play in the safe area the bottom, but they'd take one look at the playground and want to escape to the wild half up top. Visitors are greeted by the sandy square of a dog toilet - great if you're four-legged but not a wonderful sight otherwise. Looking around it may appear that the entire park exists solely for the benefit of dogs and their owners. It's hard to walk very far without encountering some trotting squat canine, or else discovering unpleasant evidence that one was all too recently beneath your shoe. On my last visit to the park I was charged and inquisitively sniffed by a particularly unpleasant specimen called "Jayder" (I'm guessing that's how the pink-fleeced owner would spell the bitch's name). The local alcoholics watched my plight from one of the Scrub's few benches, from which they and their cans of 6-for-£5 lager held court.
The properly interesting part of LittleWormwoodScrubs is the big patch of scrubland above the featureless grass. It's still a bit artificial in places, but sufficiently unplanned elsewhere to feel properly off the beaten track. There are meandering pathways to explore through a central area of bushes and undergrowth - back in July 2005 the perfect spot to abandon an unexploded rucksack. There are raised pathways to trace in the wooded fringes along the northern perimeter - close to an invisible railway and an inaccessible canal. There's also a long path round the back of the park - the perfect length for a daily jog, but only so long as you feel safe venturing alone into this screened and secluded corner. I felt a little uneasy on my walk round, but the demons and hellhounds of my imagination never quite materialised.
Little Wormwood Scrubs has great potential, rather more than your average hectare of kickabout grass. Providing almost half a million pounds to enhance and improve the park should make a huge difference, and make the place far more welcoming for families, joggers and budding naturalists. Let's hope that local residents on the Dalgarno Estate (and their dogs) finally get to enjoy the unpolished diamond on their doorstep.
That's rather different to how the area is today. I can't imagine many nature lovers making a special effort to visit Little Wormwood Scrubs, especially when there's the more interesting expanse of big Wormwood Scrubs nextdoor. You'd never stumble upon LWS by accident, tucked away between two railways and a deprived Victorian housing estate on the edge of Hammersmith & Fulham. It's a park of two halves, the lower section bland and more municipal, the upper section more overgrown and remote. You might let your kids play in the safe area the bottom, but they'd take one look at the playground and want to escape to the wild half up top. Visitors are greeted by the sandy square of a dog toilet - great if you're four-legged but not a wonderful sight otherwise. Looking around it may appear that the entire park exists solely for the benefit of dogs and their owners. It's hard to walk very far without encountering some trotting squat canine, or else discovering unpleasant evidence that one was all too recently beneath your shoe. On my last visit to the park I was charged and inquisitively sniffed by a particularly unpleasant specimen called "Jayder" (I'm guessing that's how the pink-fleeced owner would spell the bitch's name). The local alcoholics watched my plight from one of the Scrub's few benches, from which they and their cans of 6-for-£5 lager held court.
