Friday 6 December 2013

Cutbacks? What Cutbacks? Part 2587925

Hackney council is providing funds to help develop Mabley Green into a place planted with fruit, vegetable, nut and herb trees and bushes for people to pick and eat the produce.
Mmmm! I love my fresh produce flavoured with diesel fumes and the tang of ganja, lightly coated in dog and fox urine.

Doesn't everyone?
The council is giving £100,000 to pay for planting at the site near the Olympic Park, along with outreach programmes for school and pensioners’ groups and the salary for three years of a part-time officer to care for it.
Now, I can’t quite figure out if that means £100000 for all of the above, or just for the planting and the rest is extra…
However, many locals, including the Mabley Green User Group, are fighting
To prevent such a barmy money-wasting scheme?
… to have a much bigger area for the edible park…
Wha..?
… so that it would beat the current record holder, the seven-acre Beacon Food Forest in Seattle which opened in 2009.
/facepalm
Mr Rafferty (Ed: chair of the user group) said that the edible garden would help tackle childhood obesity rates, of which Hackney has some of the worst in London.
Is that all? Won’t it usher in world peace as well?
He said: “If children can come into the park and forage for and interact with fruits and vegetables it will make being healthy fun for them.
“We also want Hackney mums to be able to say to the children, ‘Run to the park and pick some apples for the tea.’
It’s about bringing a bit of rural into an urban area.”
I think Hackney mums'll stick to Iceland, mate.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not wholly bad. If vandalism doesn't destroy it, then "the Tragedy of the commons" will; as sure as gravity pulls apples to earth. Either way we are training a generation of people that Socialism doesn't work.

If only we could train socialists to change their mind when confronted by reality.

Anonymous said...

And in these 'Parks', would there be fairies at the bottom ?

Woman on a Raft said...

I don't want to damn the idea because I have seen local orchards work quite well. But there is something daftly sweet about a spokesperson who talks about sending children to the park to collect apples for tea as if they grew all the year round.

The Blocked Dwarf said...

Who is to pay for the policing of it? There could be a Wolf/Paedo/Smoker hiding behind every appple tree just waiting to prey on small apple-gathering tots callously sent out by their benefit-scrounging parents to find food for tea.

And god help them if they plant FOREIGN apple trees ("Hardworking Busy British Moms FORCED to eat French Fruit!) or worse still BLACKberries!


Can fruit trees be Halal?

Fidel Cuntstruck said...

It looked like a reasonable enough idea to me .. until I got to the phrase "outreach programmes" I don't know what it is about this particular phrase that gets my bullshit sensors twitching so.

I still think the idea is good, though I fear that many of the yoof who initially get involved will quickly become disillusioned .. there just isn't enough sunshine for dem ganja plants to grow innit?

Anonymous said...

Loony Left Councils never went away - just Green.

Ian B said...

I do like these public health schemes. They always have such a dramatic effect on our healthful wellbeingness. It reminds me of the muchness of money spent on my local park, where to great fanfare exercise machines were installed, to increase the wellfull healthbeingness of the populace.

And there they standt, forlorn and unused, gently rusting, to this day.

Furor Teutonicus said...

XX Hackney council is providing funds to help develop Mabley Green into a place planted with fruit, vegetable, nut XX

The place is ALREADY full of Fruits, vegatables, and nuts!

And that is just the population!

Anonymous said...

Bunny

What about fencing an area off and calling it say an allotment, give them a water pipe into it and hey presto the local allotment society can run it themselves. How's that for a radical idea, challenging a bit of obesity, I know do some work you cretins.

JuliaM said...

"Either way we are training a generation of people that Socialism doesn't work."

You'd think we'd no more need to teach that than gravity. But we do.

"But there is something daftly sweet about a spokesperson who talks about sending children to the park to collect apples for tea as if they grew all the year round."

Quite!

Well, I suppose the reasoning goes that 'they are available all year round in Tesco'..!

"Who is to pay for the policing of it?"

"Vegetable Squad! Drop the dibber, sunshine. You're nicked!"

JuliaM said...

"I don't know what it is about this particular phrase that gets my bullshit sensors twitching so."

I'll hazard a guess. Everything!

"And there they standt, forlorn and unused, gently rusting, to this day."

Rusting? I'm surprised the pikeys haven't had 'em away!

"The place is ALREADY full of Fruits, vegatables, and nuts!

And that is just the population!"


Heh!

JuliaM said...

"What about fencing an area off and calling it say an allotment, give them a water pipe into it and hey presto the local allotment society can run it themselves."

Most councils are doing their damnedest to make it hard for allotments.

Barman said...

Won't somebody think of the cheeeedren?

What if an cheeeldren with a nut allergy should wander into the place?

Wouldn't that be fucking funny eh?

JohnM said...

Meanwhile, Grist (a left wing site) tells us about the reality of community gardens