ROADS AND PARKS

Autumn Leaves Part 2

I am pleased to report that the pedestrian footpath has now largely been cleared of autumn leaves. The leaves and leaf-mould have been shovelled into large white plastic sacks that have been sitting on the grass for the past week (so that will be good for the grass!) and the path is nearly clear. Jolly good.

Meanwhile, on the main section of the Green, a large area is fenced off by contractors who are apparently installing gym equipment. This involves digging up grass, levelling the surface, installing kerbstones and presumably will involve putting some sort of surface down, though they haven't got that far yet, despite being there for three weeks. A significant area of grass will be lost. When I first saw this, I asked the councillors what was going on, and after they explained, I was told that there had been consultation; well, I wasn't consulted, and nor were my neighbours; I imagine they only consulted people in flats adjoining that section of the Green, as the people who would be affected by the works, and whose view would be altered. Not really keeping the community informed, but never mind. Apparently Westminster have been given money for this purpose. Now, I'm sure this is a good thing, or would be if people know that the equipment is there, though we already have the equipment for a "fitness trail" around the Green, which gets little use. It will be interesting to see how much use this new equipment will get. The thing is, though, that local young people do actually use the grass to take exercise, playing football. Westminster Parks Department cannot recognise that fact, though, because they forbid ball games on the Green, and so they pretend that installing this equipment will improve people's fitness levels, when in fact it may inhibit young people from taking the exercise that they already do.

The Parks Department's self-defeating regulations are a particular bugbear of mine. Why ban football, exactly? On a large stretch of grass ball games can be accommodated alongside other activity. There are no flower beds to destroy. Similarly, cycling is theoretically banned on the Green, but Westminster allowed the creation of the cycle path through the canalside section (with mayoral money) some ten years ago, while the path down towards Royal Oak is regularly used by cyclists (not just me) and is wide enough to allow that without any threat to pedestrians. In fact, the local cycle training for children (which may perhaps get a little funding from WCC) takes place on the paths of the Green. It seems futile to put up notices prohibiting harmless (indeed beneficial) activities, particularly when you have no intention of enforcing those prohibitions.


Conservation

The conservators have just about finished work on cleaning the upper register of the nave ceiling, and very splendid it looks. That's forty-eight saints, with twenty-four more to go in the lower register. At the same time, obviously, the background panels (with a pleasing mauve among the most prominent colours) and the elaborately patterned ribs are also being cleaned. One or two of the saints have been badly damaged by past scrubbing, and there are tricky decisions about what detail to put back in, but our conservators (and conservation architects) are very judicious. It is noticeable that several of the saints seen in profile have large noses; are we dealing with a Victorian nose fetishist?

As soon as we put in our new uplighters five years or so ago, which enabled the nave ceiling to be seen reasonably well for the first time in decades, people remarked on what looked like painted flames. I would say, "The ceiling's depicting heaven, with all the saints," and after a pause someone would ask, "Why are there flames?" I have always tried to talk about it being rays of light, rather than flames, but people always sound unconvinced. I hope that when we have the chancel ceiling visible as well (just lighting revealed nothing of that) then the continuation of the motif there may make it more intelligible as the divine light. Because in the chancel the rays of light emerge from the centre into a roughly semi-circular ceiling the image of a sunburst makes sense, but in the nave, the rays emerge from either side of the ridge, which doesn't immediately suggest the sun. 


Heavy Traffic

I realise that it annoys motorists when cyclists skirt round puddles, but the problem is that you never know how deep a puddle may be, or how sharp the edge of the concealed pothole may be. When the snow was melting this was a particular issue on the Harrow Road, as you couldn't be sure how much new damage had been made by the ice. Still, Kilburn Park Road is much the worst road surface in the neighbourhood, which may be because it comes under Brent rather than Westminster (the boundary runs up the middle), but also because it has constant buses and a regular flow of cement lorries and concrete mixers, not least because of the redevelopment of the South Kilburn Estate. It's all very well applauding the amount of building going on in London, but the heavy vehicles that building works require take a real toll on the local roads. Our little building site actually generates very little, as the new build element is tiny, but all these new blocks of flats and offices contain vast amounts of steel and concrete which have to be shipped around on large, heavy vehicles, destroying the road surface. Remember, cyclists are actually killed by potholes!