Local School children contributed the images on the plant pots in Daubeney gardens.

Daubeney Road Car Park is home to a community project, one of the Mayor’s pocket parks that is home to bees, fresh fruits and a mural from an arts group, created in the 1980s. A petition has circulated, created by Gerry Tissier who is part of the action group Daubeney Fields forever, which states the community would lose a ‘local oasis of calm’ if it were to be developed.

Tissier himself said, that:

“Over the last three years, we have transformed a derelict eye sore into a special, loved space that helps to bring different communities together […] It’s important that Hackney Council listen to what kind of development the community wants to see in the car park.”

However, some feel that the area could be used for affordable housing.

Hackney council have argued that with a backlog of people on the waiting list for homes, using spaces such as these, which they claim were provided as ‘temporary’ patches should be used to house people.

Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney, said: “With 13,000 families on the Council’s housing waiting list and 3,000 households living in unsuitable temporary accommodation, the Council needs to do all it can to build the homes Hackney needs […] We are committed to re-providing space for community gardening as part of the new development and are already working closely with the users of the community garden to discuss plans for this.”

Locals in the area have mixed views. Most of them say it would be a shame to lose the garden, as they enjoy walking passed it. Others, believe that housing is more important then the garden.

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