Local free newspapers and Optima magazine have carried advertisements telling readers where they can go to voice their views and hear what is happening.
What will happen to Harrow?
Proposals include moving the civic centre.
I hope they will keep:
1 The Whitefriars Glass windows showing Churchill who went to school in Harrow and the history of the area
2 The plaque with the quotation from Anne Frank, from the semi-circular Council chamber, with its banners showing the history of Harrow.
3 The portraits of previous mayors.
4 The pictures of famous people and events in Harrow: Just a few of them: Byron at school in Harrow.
5 Meeting rooms.
6 Ample parking space. (We need more. Not less.)
7 The marquetry picture of famous people from Harrow: Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile; magistrate Gilbert who wrote the words for Gilbert and Sullivan operas 'I've got a little list'; 'A policeman's lot is not a happy one'. Not now it isn't. Leefe Robinson, local hero from WWI.
8 The items donated by organisations of Harrow now displayed in the glass case in the mayor's parlour - all sorts of unusual and intriguing items from different races and religions.
9 The mace.
10 The library with computers.
Ah, you might say, we don't need libraries because everybody has a computer nowadays. Yes, and what happens when your computer crashes? Even if it's backed up weekly, a real headache when it's with this week's diary, your tax return, the work you were sent ...
Or you forgot your password and your new passwords are sent to your phone and your phone's been stolen.
What will happen between the time when one building is demolished and the other one built? Will we have no offices? Or will be be paying for both simultaneously? Will they be miles away?
By the time they finish a new building, we will probably need an overflow into the existing building.
They are asking what we want? They know what we want. Campaigns and letters have appeared in all the local papers.
1 We want the money they propose to spend on a new building to be spent first on
2 Keeping open the libraries
3 And the police stations
4 Which should also take in lost property)
5 Saving the (Pinner Park) farm and farm animals providing milk.
6 Not closing down nearest hospital A and E making people in an emergency having to spend time and money travelling a long way to an A & E, too far to ask the neighbours to take them, then ending up in a hospital miles from home, plus wasting ambulance time
Swimming Pool Upgrade
7 Upgrade the white walled swimming pool. which has scarcely enough room for two people to walk around it without knocking into the water somebody coming the other way. No room for granny to sit reading a newspaper whilst watching the grandchildren. Add some colour and greenery. It is less welcoming than most people's bathroom at home. It should be overcooked by a caffe to provide extra eyes to supplement lifeguards and encourage people to want to use the pool.
They say we need housing but they are selling off a farm, in green belt land, which should be preserved, to provide big houses for the rich.
As for building many more small houses, we don't want historic Harrow turned into a city of skyscrapers.
In large countries like the USA and France you can give people land on which they can grow their own food, grow crops to make clothes and shoes, be self-sufficient.
How long can you continue putting people in skyscrapers, covering the green land, erasing farms and orchards, importing food?
Families having more than two children means a constant demand for more schools, homes, transport, hospitals.
But we are closing down hospitals, and cramming in more people who cannot be fed on the land. It's madness. People are living longer, the birthrate is going up, families of immigrants are arriving with five children, having up to ten, men with two or more wives. Also home grown single mothers with children from two or three mean. Cities are expanding and our own orchards have disappeared.
Just one bad summer can wipe out crops in any country.
Then what. The Irish know what happened in the potato famine. The French farmers learned that to beat a bad harvest of one food, you need grow several crops of different sorts which harvest at different times of year. So the spring hail doesn't ruin your entire crop because you have more food harvested in summer.
We should copy Shanghai and have one child per family. And dig for victory like in WWII.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
So where are we meeting? Now that the library has been closed, and the Arts Centre is repeatedly under threat, and rooms are too expensive for the local writers association to meet more than once a month, we have to meet in a supermarket.
You couldn't make it up.
Above photos by Angela Lansbury.
Angela Lansbury (member of Harrow Writers' Circle), travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
PS I am a great supporter of many of our councillors. They all have different opinions. I just wanted to make my views heard for the benefit of everybody who lives in or works in or visits Harrow.
Regarding Harrow Arts Centre and the Headstone Lane Museum:
Public Open Events
Sat Dec 5th at Morrisons, Hatch End, 3-5 pm
Wed Dec 9th 6-8pm Harrow Arts Centre
Thurs Dec 10 Harrow Arts Centre 10am-1 pm and 3-5 pm.
www.culturalondonuk
To me and those I have spoken to the idea of a cinema and enlarged theatre sounds good. However, the glass stuck on the front of a brick buildings obscuring them and in a totally different style looks odd.
You can contact them to make your views known:
http://www.culturalondon.uk/contact-us/
Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. Follow me here. Follow me on Facebook. Link to mean LinkedIn. See me on YouTube. Meet me at speakers or writers meetings in England and Singapore. Browse or buy my books on Amazon and Lulu.com
What will happen to Harrow?
Proposals include moving the civic centre.
White friars Glass window in Harrow civic centre.
1 The Whitefriars Glass windows showing Churchill who went to school in Harrow and the history of the area
2 The plaque with the quotation from Anne Frank, from the semi-circular Council chamber, with its banners showing the history of Harrow.
3 The portraits of previous mayors.
4 The pictures of famous people and events in Harrow: Just a few of them: Byron at school in Harrow.
5 Meeting rooms.
6 Ample parking space. (We need more. Not less.)
7 The marquetry picture of famous people from Harrow: Roger Bannister and the 4 minute mile; magistrate Gilbert who wrote the words for Gilbert and Sullivan operas 'I've got a little list'; 'A policeman's lot is not a happy one'. Not now it isn't. Leefe Robinson, local hero from WWI.
8 The items donated by organisations of Harrow now displayed in the glass case in the mayor's parlour - all sorts of unusual and intriguing items from different races and religions.
9 The mace.
10 The library with computers.
Ah, you might say, we don't need libraries because everybody has a computer nowadays. Yes, and what happens when your computer crashes? Even if it's backed up weekly, a real headache when it's with this week's diary, your tax return, the work you were sent ...
Or you forgot your password and your new passwords are sent to your phone and your phone's been stolen.
A kaput computer.
You can't use another computer because the passwords are in the one that's in for repair. Apple takes a week to give you a Genius bar appointment. Microsoft is not compatible with Apple so two members of the same family can't share computers.
What will happen between the time when one building is demolished and the other one built? Will we have no offices? Or will be be paying for both simultaneously? Will they be miles away?
By the time they finish a new building, we will probably need an overflow into the existing building.
What did Churchill say? Something about: We will fight them in the shopping centres, we will fight them by the beech trees, we will fight them in the newspapers, we will never give up.
1 We want the money they propose to spend on a new building to be spent first on
2 Keeping open the libraries
3 And the police stations
4 Which should also take in lost property)
5 Saving the (Pinner Park) farm and farm animals providing milk.
6 Not closing down nearest hospital A and E making people in an emergency having to spend time and money travelling a long way to an A & E, too far to ask the neighbours to take them, then ending up in a hospital miles from home, plus wasting ambulance time
Swimming Pool Upgrade
7 Upgrade the white walled swimming pool. which has scarcely enough room for two people to walk around it without knocking into the water somebody coming the other way. No room for granny to sit reading a newspaper whilst watching the grandchildren. Add some colour and greenery. It is less welcoming than most people's bathroom at home. It should be overcooked by a caffe to provide extra eyes to supplement lifeguards and encourage people to want to use the pool.
They say we need housing but they are selling off a farm, in green belt land, which should be preserved, to provide big houses for the rich.
As for building many more small houses, we don't want historic Harrow turned into a city of skyscrapers.
In large countries like the USA and France you can give people land on which they can grow their own food, grow crops to make clothes and shoes, be self-sufficient.
How long can you continue putting people in skyscrapers, covering the green land, erasing farms and orchards, importing food?
Families having more than two children means a constant demand for more schools, homes, transport, hospitals.
But we are closing down hospitals, and cramming in more people who cannot be fed on the land. It's madness. People are living longer, the birthrate is going up, families of immigrants are arriving with five children, having up to ten, men with two or more wives. Also home grown single mothers with children from two or three mean. Cities are expanding and our own orchards have disappeared.
Just one bad summer can wipe out crops in any country.
Then what. The Irish know what happened in the potato famine. The French farmers learned that to beat a bad harvest of one food, you need grow several crops of different sorts which harvest at different times of year. So the spring hail doesn't ruin your entire crop because you have more food harvested in summer.
We should copy Shanghai and have one child per family. And dig for victory like in WWII.
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer.
The old Harrow with trees. Pinner Church.
The new concrete jungle.
Photos by Angela Lansbury.
So where are we meeting? Now that the library has been closed, and the Arts Centre is repeatedly under threat, and rooms are too expensive for the local writers association to meet more than once a month, we have to meet in a supermarket.
You couldn't make it up.
Above photos by Angela Lansbury.
Angela Lansbury (member of Harrow Writers' Circle), travel writer and photographer, author, speaker.
PS I am a great supporter of many of our councillors. They all have different opinions. I just wanted to make my views heard for the benefit of everybody who lives in or works in or visits Harrow.
Harrow is becoming oppressive with huge windowless walls rising from the pavement.
Drive over the bridge over Harrow and Wealdstone station outside the civic centre. Skyscrapers are built so close to the road, that the poor little balconies must be filled with fumes. The windows view traffic and hear noise.
I see the adverts for new flats in the area. I am very glad that people in flats are being offered balconies. Otherwise you are in a prison cell all summer, and in the evenings. With global warming, and people used to living in flats in hot countries, or coming from houses with gardens, more people expect balconies. The youngsters and yuppies want to sit on balconies for evening drinks and meals. The poor and the pensioners want their washing on the balconies (discreetly hidden by frosted glass or low bamboo fencing).
The top deck of a bus would look at your sunbathing, and the sheer drop doesn't allow any way to climb out or even wave in an emergency, though the next block's balconies overhang so hazardously they look like they could drop a flower pot onto passing traffic.
Regarding Harrow Arts Centre and the Headstone Lane Museum:
Public Open Events
Sat Dec 5th at Morrisons, Hatch End, 3-5 pm
Wed Dec 9th 6-8pm Harrow Arts Centre
Thurs Dec 10 Harrow Arts Centre 10am-1 pm and 3-5 pm.
www.culturalondonuk
To me and those I have spoken to the idea of a cinema and enlarged theatre sounds good. However, the glass stuck on the front of a brick buildings obscuring them and in a totally different style looks odd.
You can contact them to make your views known:
http://www.culturalondon.uk/contact-us/
Angela Lansbury travel writer and photographer, author, speaker. Follow me here. Follow me on Facebook. Link to mean LinkedIn. See me on YouTube. Meet me at speakers or writers meetings in England and Singapore. Browse or buy my books on Amazon and Lulu.com
No comments:
Post a Comment