4th March 2008
RESIDENTS SEEK A THOUSAND NAMES TO STOP COMMON DEVELOPMENT
www.precious-tooting.info.
SOUTH London residents are on a collision course with the council over plans to put a commercial football complex at the heart of the common.
An online petition is aiming to get 1,000 signatures by Easter to help stop the plan, which will involve 10 - 12 artificial pitches on an area of grassland at the centre of the Tooting Triangle.
Many residents are outraged that precious common land, currently available to everyone, will be lost forever to a commercial development that is unlikely to benefit many from the local community. Building over a central area of the common and installing floodlighting and high fences will destroy the natural green wilderness in the Triangle - the only area of the common not bordered by roads.
Already more than 450 have signed up in just two weeks, with three weeks still left until Easter.
A similar bid to build artificial pitches in Regents Park was recently stopped by local residents.
A campaigning group, PRECIOUS, has been formed by local people who regularly use and love Tooting Common and oppose Wandsworth Council's proposal. It has set up a website and online petition and now aims to achieve a ‘Tooting Common Thousand’ by Easter
"We are getting support for taking this stand right across the two boroughs affected,” says Rod Pearson, chairman of the group. “It’s amazing how much opposition there is.
"We have no political agenda - our case is simply that we do not want to see a single square metre of Tooting Common built on for commercial gain.
"The Triangle area as it is is now is a visually pleasing and very special haven in a sea of suburban sprawl.
"The Common has been gifted to all of us wherever we live by a more enlightened and far-signed generation. We believe this scheme will cause so much opposition and wasted energy - it should be dropped now.
"There must be some other more secondary, brown field land in the borough for these football pitches."
Residents who oppose the plan say the proposed development will hugely compromise the character and integrity of the area.
Anyone opposed to the proposed development should go to www.precious-tooting.info and follow the links to the Tooting Common Thousand petition. Precious has set up a website, www.precious-tooting.info both to keep people informed and to find out what local people think about Wandsworth’s proposal.
Note to editors:
Why PRECIOUS? PRECIOUS is an acronym that represents growing national concern at the insidious erosion of green spaces for commercial gain in our cities, Protecting the Environment in our Cities and In Our Urban Spaces. Precious is a recently formed group of committed local people who have an interest in Tooting Common and the Triangle and a strong desire to ensure this oasis of green is preserved for future generations. We are ordinary people working in our spare time and using our own resources.