Derelict ideas

I spotted this little news story on the Scottish section of the BBC site about how a group of people decided to improve their local community and Glasgow council has decided to take them to court for the pleasure.

It seems a patch of land had lain fallow and unused for more than 25 years, so all credit to the locals who had the get up and go to turn it to good use, growing vegetables, planting flowers and essentially empowering the community without doing a single person in the world the least bit of harm.

Glasgow council has seen things differently and issued a 'get off my land' notice to the North Kelvin Meadow Campaign which has been operating for some months improving the area.

According to the Beeb; "Douglas Peacock, who chairs the group, said the idea was to transform a derelict piece of land into community use. The campaign began with a few people volunteering to plant flowers and clean up the site".

"It's now a wild flower meadow and on the back of this some local people wanted to grow vegetables - hence the raised beds which we have installed. We now want to do something bigger and install a raised bed which will grow herbs and lettuce for the whole community".

It sounds bloody marvellous to me. People who care about where they live are the backbone of the community. They should be supported by the council not taken to bloody court.

It's also good to see that MSP Patrick Harvie is supporting the cause saying "The city council has seriously misjudged popular feeling about the North Kelvin Meadow, and it will regret this absurd legal action... Local people are being taken to court for improving their public space, for working together and for growing their own fruit and veg, something which Glasgow needs to do much more of.

"The North Kelvin Meadow Campaign is Glasgow at its finest, and the council should be listening to it, not prosecuting it."

Which is exactly what I just said. Bloody plagiarist.

Whilst the council may say that if you transgress the letter of the law you have to be punished, I'd say that natural justice dictates that if the council left the land to go derelict when others have a use for it - why should we leave it in the hands of those who'd squander an ideal opportunity to grow something with roots?