8 Jun 2007 - Lavender field saved

Despite a very worrying start to the year with the threat of losing our beloved field to development when Sutton Council in their infinite wisdom chose Stanley Road Allotments as one of three sites to build a High School for the future. We started to solicit help and support from experts and the general public and with the help of the Local Guardian and Garden News started the Save Carshalton Lavender Campaign. This indeed was a very stress making period for us all. In April Sutton Council decided that to build on an established heritage lavender field and allotment site did little to promote their Green Thinking Image. They therefore announced plans to drop the site as a potential location. Needless to say we were prepared to fight all the way and making preparation to campaign central government at a higher level.

In the end the result was what we had been trying to tell them in the beginning. The plus points of the campaign were that it bought our Carshalton Lavender project to the notice of a wider audience and cemented the association of Carshalton Lavender and the Allotment Holders. Also it has highlighted how gardens and allotments can be classed as ‘brown field’ and lost to development forever. Some are not as lucky as us

See http://www.lifeisland.org/

We can once again get back to the pleasure of growing the original Lavendula Angustifolia and producing premium local oil cherished by aromatheripist’s also makers of blended products.

We would like to thank all who signed our petition or helped in any way to save our small historical reconstruction of what helped to make the local area (Carshalton, Wallington, and Mitcham) once famous and hope to meet you on Harvest Days.

This project is just one small portion of our planet and I like to think we are just the guardians for a brief moment in time so it may be passed on to future generations for time immemorial.

L. Rudham