Greenwich Council has enraged the residents of a London estate by imposing a blanket ban on garden ornaments, benches and pot plants, even sending in ‘enforcers’ to remove such items from gardens.
The Vanbrugh Park Estate on the edge of Greenwich Park, London, is a mixture of housing types including an eight storey tower block comprising 64 flats along with three and four bedroom houses and three blocks of single storey mews flats over garages. The modernist homes were built in the early 1960s and are a mix of social and privately owned properties. The original architect’s design included a pool and areas in which the residents had access to the outdoors and could call their own.
Pot plants and benches adorn many of the front entranceways of the mews flats, that are recessed some 3.6m from the boundary, and leave a clear 900mm communal external walkway. The ‘gardens’ create an attractive outdoor space of flowers and vegetables, benches, laundry drying areas and provide the opportunity for social interaction with neighbours.
The garden spaces afford a level of privacy and shading within the properties which have floor to ceiling glazing in the living spaces directly facing the walkway. They provide residents the opportunity to sit outside. As none of the properties are free of steps, this can often be the only time some of the less able or frail have the chance to meet other people.
Without such green spaces, residents argue, the area would look uncared for, even potentially attracting more crime to the area.
Greenwich Council wrote to the residents of the mews flats on repeated occasions even though other flats also had plants and other items on their balconies. One letter gave them 48 hours in which to remove items from their gardens to enable firefighters easy access in the event of a fire, citing the Grenfell Tower disaster in their reasoning.
The council’s own fire safety report in 2020 accepted the risk of pot plants was ‘trivial’ and that external escape routes at the properties were ‘satisfactory’ and an independent report in 2023, commissioned by the residents, failed to identify a problem with anything outside the flats’ entrance doors.
Residents claim that the estate complies with building regulations which dictate that a minimum 900mm of clear space should be available for communal access routes. Beyond the 2000mm gardens, the clear area directly outside front doors and all along the communal walkways is 900mm wide.
However, the council itself has failed to address issues raised in its own fire safety report and these issues remain of concern to residents. The properties do not have fire doors, there was dangerous wiring in the garages below the mews flats and the contents of the garages was unknown causing concern that flammable liquids or chemicals could be left unchecked directly below some homes.
Phineas Harper, who is chief executive of the charity Open City, lives on the estate and has cynically accused the council of taking action against the residents as a way of getting out of spending money on more important issues. The residents have begun a petition to save their outdoor spaces, calling on the council to end their campaign and begin ‘constructive dialogue’ to reach a compromise.