Friends
The Scrubs is a wonderful place, treasured by its many users for its feeling of escape from the city and almost unique in London for its natural, rural appeal. Such a place needs constant vigilance to ensure that it stays that way.
The Friends of the Scrubs is an association of users of Wormwood Scrubs Common who wish to preserve the Scrubs for its original use as enshrined in the Wormwood Scrubs Act 1879 “by inhabitants of the metropolis for exercise and recreation”. The London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham manages the Scrubs as its trustee under this Act. Examples of poor maintenance of the open space and insensitive management of the habitat coupled with a Council plan to install tarmac roads for pedestrians and cyclists, create an arboretum and make other supposed improvements prompted a few devotees of the Scrubs to form the Friends in the late nineteen-nineties. Following an open meeting with the Council, membership of the Friends increased significantly, the plan was abandoned and the Friends now had a voice that could be heard by the Council.
In 2002 the Scrubs was awarded the status of Local Nature Reserve (LNR) with representatives of the Friends on the LNR’s advisory committee. In 2004 Crossrail proposed a tunnel under the Scrubs, the building of which would have taken about one third of the Scrubs out of use for six or seven years, quite apart from the lasting harm the use of machinery and dumping of spoil might have done. This threat was eventually removed by the decision not to build the south western branch line to Kingston but provided the impetus in January 2005 for the Friends to have a more formal constitution, elected officers and an annual general meeting. Its principal objects are to:
- maintain the use of the Scrubs under the 1879 Act.
- encourage public knowledge and appreciation of its natural history.
- resist encroachment affecting its use by the public.
The Scrubs’ users include walkers, dog walkers, pony riders, botanists, bird watchers and nature lovers of all kinds, footballers and other games players and athletes, kite flyers and kite-boarders, model aircraft flyers.
To become a Friend of Wormwood Scrubs please visit www.friendsofwormwoodscrubs.org.uk and sign up to the mailing list.
Jane Charteris reviews a funding application pack
with Charlie Dimmock!