New opportunity to save the woods!! Deadline Friday 23rd

[HopOne]

How about Camberwell New Cemetery? No we are not talking about ground-water contamination. Sorry, do not know who Katie Hopkins is.

[edhistory]

Well someone was writing about groundwater contamination, which is why I posted thus:

http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1590943,1593943#msg-1593943

[edborders]

> > BrandNewGuy Wrote:

> >

I suggested that your

> methods are dreadful and counterproductive. But I don't really feel I have to justify

> myself to you.

you need to justify yourself to yourself BrandNewGuy. Ask yourself why are you not supporting a just campaign to stop the council from cutting down over 10 acres of beautiful woods, including almost an acre on One Tree Hill?

(One Tree Hill for god's sake!!)

Why wouldn't you support a campaign that is alerting local people to Southwark's plan to dig up or mound over EVERY GRAVE in both cemeteries? I am sure Southwark hasn't been telling them.

Why wouldn't you support a campaign that wants to preserves the graves of the dead in a protective coating of nature. Families can visit their loved ones in beautiful

Save Southwark Woods has been a tremendous success.

We have held off the chainsaws and diggers for over a year. We have been on the BBC, ITV, and in The Times, Evening Standard. the Southwark News and South London Press and many other media outlets. We now have 10,000 names (and email addresses) supporting our cause. A year ago we had nothing.

We have caused untold political distress to our local Councillors Vicki Mills, Darren Merrill, Gavin Edwards, Renata Hamvas who represent Leader Peter John and not their local people. I am sure every Labour Party councillor is sick to death of Peter John's plans. (Except for some who want Peter John to go down in flames and would be happy to have his career buried in the Camberwell Cemeteries.) Harriet Harman and Sadiq Khan are dodging us cause it is a hot potato - but everyone else is with us. Will Labour Councillors reply to this post? Hehehe.

Please watch the video on ITV NEWS. See our bumbling Darren Merrill. A boy sent to do a job John Peter John should have done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eklxkk30bQ

And even if Southwark comes in ans cuts down trees very soon it will help our cause. Southwark's scars they create on One Tree Hill will be visible from below the bill, and we will be in full view of the BBC, ITV and the rest again. There are 100 acres of woods which need protecting and we have just begun to fight.

BrandNewGuy, stop having digs at us and join us in this good cause.

Lewis Schaffer,

Forest Hill, East Dulwich and Nunhead for 15 years. before that Manhattan.

Here is my phone number. Call me and we can talk. 07886504221

http;//www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[Otta]

edborders Wrote:

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>

> Why wouldn't you

Largely because of you I'd imagine.

[nxjen]

There is so much that could be said to unpack this latest bullying post from EDBorders but the campaigners are now being deliberately provocative, starting new threads and continuing old threads as a means of keeping the subject 'live' when in fact Southwark Council have dismissed their claims one by one and will be proceeding with the works. A lawyer consulted by SSW has stated they have no basis for a legal challenge. Short of chaining themselves to trees when the work is undertaken and lying down in front of JCBs, which will only delay works not prevent them, there appears little more they can do other than hope to achieve something through being a persistent nuisance. Generally I admire perseverence but not in this case where there has been so much alienating behaviour.

[edhistory]

Was it Mr Barber who wrote that there were potentially ten thousand invalid signatures.

John K

[Siduhe]

Why wouldn't you support a campaign that wants to preserves the graves of the dead in a protective coating of nature. Families can visit their loved ones in beautiful [sic]

I may be misunderstanding, but isn't your group against any new burials in the borough? So yes, families can visit their loved ones who have already died, but not any new loved ones who die in future - they'll have to travel outside the borough to do that?

[Nigello]

Could someone please just do a very brief, very clear synopsis off all of this? Who wants what and why?!

[Sue]

edborders Wrote:

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Harriet Harman and Sadiq Khan are

> dodging us cause it is a hot potato - but everyone

> else is with us.

Hot potato? "Everyone else is with us"?!?!

Perhaps Harriet and Sadiq have actually looked objectively at the issues.

Journalists are just grateful for any story handed to them on a plate.

Have you read over your more recent (in particular) posts on here? Do you honestly think this kind of approach can possibly be helping your cause?

What do your fellow campaigners feel about it, I wonder?

[Sue]

Nigello Wrote:

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> Could someone please just do a very brief, very

> clear synopsis off all of this? Who wants what and

> why?!

That will get edborders starting another load of threads again :))

[HopOne]

Siduhe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Why wouldn't you support a campaign that wants to

> preserves the graves of the dead in a protective

> coating of nature. Families can visit their loved

> ones in beautiful

>

> I may be misunderstanding, but isn't your group

> against any new burials in the borough? So yes,

> families can visit their loved ones who have

> already died, but not any new loved ones who die

> in future - they'll have to travel outside the

> borough to do that?

Which is normal for an inner city borough so not an outlandish proposal. It is worth noting that Southwark, having cleared the current burials, wish to offer, as a service, to bury anyone from other boroughs too. By implication, all those visitors will have travelled outside their boroughs.

[dbboy]

BrandNewGuy, you do not need to justify yourself to anyone.

nxjen, very well said.

[Siduhe]

HopOne, that's understood. I've posted elsewhere about the significant differential pricing between burial costs for Southwark residents and those outside the borough which seek to address this.

The point I was making is that edborders says people should support the campaign so that "families can visit their loved ones in beautiful [surroundings?]". However, this only applies to families of people who are already buried, not anyone else in the borough. I find it an odd proposition to make that people who want to visit their dead family members in lovely surroundings should support the campaign, when it's actually against any new burials.

[Otta]

Nigello Wrote:

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> Could someone please just do a very brief, very

> clear synopsis off all of this? Who wants what and

> why?!

A bunch of people made up a place called Southwark Woods, and now want to save it even though it doesn't exist. That's about the long and the short of it.

There are some very old graves involved too. Graves of people that no one remembers.

[taper]

There is definitely a wood in Camberwell Old Cemetery, whatever you call it. I've walked around it. Worth preserving in my view.

[henryb]

Same in the New Cemetery. Shame to lose both areas for the sake a for the sake of a few years worth of burial plots. Not to mention the ?Ms of public money will spent and never recovered. Money that could be better spent of other important services or securing better value burial plots at cemetery further out.

[Otta]

Indeed taper.

A "save the wooded area in Camberwell Old Cemetary" campaign would have made much more sense and avoided a lot of this nonsense.

[Penguin68]

Though you may recall that the campaign started by trying to turn the cemeteries (all of them, not just the untended areas) into parkland, so that the OP could enjoy picnics and country walks (I only slightly paraphrase). Hence the bucolic (and fictional) 'Southwark Woods'. This most recent sensitivity to the long dead and their memorials (with a huge lack of care and respect towards the wishes of the recently and future bereaved) combined with lurid and disgusting fictions about corpse contamination of local streets shows some slight change in tack, but the end-game (I want a park where I live, can't be bothered to go to the many real parks around the area) remains.

[edborders]

This is Southwark's Short Term Plan:

1. Cut down dozens of trees on One Tree Hill in Camberwell New Cemetery (Honor Oak). Drive a road on top of graves to get to the area. Put in rows of graves (as best they can as it is a 7-1 grade) - 8 months worth of graves - which they will sell on 75 year leases. In 75 years, the Council will dig up the graves and sell off the plots again. Scarring One Tree Hlll forever. Good news is that the nature reserve next door has been promised the logs.

2. In the Old Cemetery (Woodvale): The plan is FIRST to cut down hundreds of what most people would call "trees" in a 2 acre area. They will remove or grind up 10,000s of tons of illegally dumped building waste on the site, truck some of that waste away and layer some of the land with some of the cleaner waste. Then they will add dirt to cover the graves of 10,000s of London's poor dead buried in public graves. Sell off the plots, then bury new bodies within inches of the dead bodies (or most likely, amongst the dead bodies) which they will sell on 75 year leases. Then when leases are up, dig up the bodies and sell off plot again. See similar ugliness to what is done on the Woodvale Road side of cemetery. Oh, I forgot two huge water holding tanks to hold the water that comes off the hills and comes out of the ground which can flood neighboring homes. See Video:

3. When these two areas are finished, the Council will then move o to the neighboring areas where they cut down the trees, but instead of mounding, they will dig up the graves of the people in the private graves, put the bones lower in the grave, or put the bones in a communal grave, sell off that plot for 75 years and in 75 years, dig up that grave and sell it on.

Continue until every grave in Camberwell is either dug up or mounded over. Have family there? Please let us know.

Lewis Schaffer

Nunheader, Save Southwark Woods, Tree and Heritage Love, high blood pressure,treated.

Who are you? http://www.savesouthwarkwoods.org.uk

[nxjen]

Penguin68 Wrote:

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> Though you may recall that the campaign started by

> trying to turn the cemeteries (all of them, not

> just the untended areas) into parkland, so that

> the OP could enjoy picnics and country walks (I

> only slightly paraphrase). Hence the bucolic (and

> fictional) 'Southwark Woods'. This most recent

> sensitivity to the long dead and their memorials

> (with a huge lack of care and respect towards the

> wishes of the recently and future bereaved)

> combined with lurid and disgusting fictions about

> corpse contamination of local streets shows some

> slight change in tack, but the end-game (I want a

> park where I live, can't be bothered to go to the

> many real parks around the area) remains.

Not to overlook for some "I want my house to continue to overlook a wooded area rather than a cemetery with the traffic this entails - so much better for property prices."

[henryb]

You could make the same argument about a lot of Victorian cemeteries. High Gate is right next to Hampstead Heath. I think a lot of people would be appalled if anyone suggested that cemetery should be re-developed simply because there are other parks near by.

Ultimately it comes down to a value judgement of what is more important the best use of the space. New burials or preserving the trees and the old graves.

[taper]

Problem with this whole debate is I'm still not entirely sure whether the wood in Camberwell Old Cemetery (on the northern and north eastern side) are genuinely under threat. I think the failure of the campaign, on top of the hyperbole, is to spread their goals too wide. Plus resorting to ad hominem against Southwark's political leadership has been a big mistake as they are the people that need to be persuaded to modify or clarify their plans.

I like Lewis and his group a lot and admire their passion and energy. But I think they need now to re-assess the scope and tone of the campaign and focus on that which is really worth preserving, maintaining and improving. And they need to work with Southwark to come up with a plan that manages and preserves the woods in COC for the future.

[Otta]

Well said taper.

[edborders]

Save Southwark Woods's scope was TOO narrow.

Southwark's plan is a never-ending rotation of grave digging and grave selling. It took us a while to see this.

They want to dig up or mound over EVERY grave in BOTH cemeteries. Even graves that were sold in perpetuity. Every poor persons' grave. And every beautfiful monument to be removed and dumped. Every memory covered over to create fresh earth to sell off. This will be Leader Peter John's gift to London: London's Graveyard. Do you have family buried there? Say goodbye to them again.

That is their strategy and it is unprecedented. The LARGEST MASS EXCAVATION in UK HISTORY.

Save Southwark Woods Campaign needs to have an even greater vision for these marvelous green spaces. And our vision is the same as that for Highgate or the nice bits of Nunhead Cemetery. Only they became wild through neglect, We say: Leave the graves alone and let cemeteries return to nature. And lets make the world a green place.

And the area in the Old Cem is more than "under threat" - the council has passed planning permission and waiting for the church to approve.

If you only want to save the 12 acres of woods, form a group "Save The Woods of Camberwell Old and New Cemeteries" and I will support you as far as that goes. But we are trying to save the world.

taper Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Problem with this whole debate is I'm still not

> entirely sure whether the wood in Camberwell Old

> Cemetery (on the northern and north eastern side)

> are genuinely under threat. I think the failure

> of the campaign, on top of the hyperbole, is to

> spread their goals too wide. Plus resorting to ad

> hominem against Southwark's political leadership

> has been a big mistake as they are the people that

> need to be persuaded to modify or clarify their

> plans.

>

> I like Lewis and his group a lot and admire their

> passion and energy. But I think they need now to

> re-assess the scope and tone of the campaign and

> focus on that which is really worth preserving,

> maintaining and improving. And they need to work

> with Southwark to come up with a plan that manages

> and preserves the woods in COC for the future.

[henryb]

> Not to overlook for some "I want my house to

> continue to overlook a wooded area rather than a

> cemetery with the traffic this entails - so much

> better for property prices."

What wooded area? I thought the woods didn't exist - why would anyone pay more for a house that was near some "worthless scrub land" or a "toxic dump" as one Labour Councillor called it? Surely your whole argument is it is really important for people to be near a cemetery so they can bury their loved ones? If that was the case wouldn't they value that more highly?