Grow Heathrow faces new threat - Kitchen Garden Magazine

…the squatted community garden in West London set up in opposition to a third airport runway, is again threatened with eviction.

Grow Heathrow, the squatted community garden in West London set up in opposition to a third airport runway, is again threatened with eviction. The project was featured in KG in April 2015, as it was celebrating its fifth birthday, and at nearly seven and a half, it is still there and still growing.

The case went back to the Royal Courts of Justice in April, and the verdict, handed down at the end of June, was in favour of the landowners. The judge acknowledged ‘the very considerable time, effort and, no doubt, expense which the Defendants have invested in making the Property into a thriving community, all of which has been carried out with the best of intentions’ but explained that neither this nor ‘the genuine support of the local community’ met the ‘exceptional’ circumstances required to override the landowners’ right to reclaim their property.

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Grow Heathrow were given 14 days to vacate the site – but they have now been given leave to appeal, so they are still there and fighting on. They are also hopeful that the landowners might still be open to negotiation, given that their various applications to develop the site have been rejected.

In the past year the Grow Heathrow residents have erected a 110 square metre polytunnel for year-round veg production; they have installed a grey water system and new composting toilets, and they are improving their biochar production, with the aim of creating a closed-loop waste system. There’s a busy events programme, and the site is open to visitors every day.

Find out more and keep up to date with the latest developments at http://www.transitionheathrow.com/grow-heathrow/ If you’re local and want to lend your support as and when the bailiffs arrive, there’s a phone tree to which you can add your number.

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Steve Ott

Steve Ott is editor of Kitchen Garden magazine and started his career as a professional grower, producing everything from cut flowers to vegetables. He has been growing fruit and veg all his life and spends most of his spare time in his garden in the East Midlands. He loves to experiment with crops and varieties he has never grown before and when he isn’t gardening is to be found out in the countryside bird watching and walking his dog Ted.