A make-shift community garden in Hackney Central, dubbed ‘The Garden of Earthly Delights’, is set to say farewell as it will be cleared to make way for an additional Hackney Central station entrance to be built.
The garden is a community hub set up by Extinction Rebellion activists on a piece of land that has been left unused for seven years, after being purchased by the council.
It is described by activists as ‘a “meanwhile” space to raise awareness of empty spaces in the city, grow food for the local community and increase biodiversity.’
The space is set to be cleared to allow the additional Hackney Central station entrance to be designed and built. The new access point has been planned by the council to alleviate congestion and overcrowding at the station.
The Council and TFL are currently discussing design proposals for the area.
Cllr Jon Burke said: “As anyone who regularly uses Hackney Central Station knows, it is often overcrowded and frustratingly busy, and the current single entrance and narrow footway is no longer fit for purpose.
“If the number of passengers continues to rise as expected, overcrowding is only going to increase and could become dangerous.”
Extinction Rebellion activists have drawn up low-carbon, high-biodiversity designs for ‘London’s first garden station’.
Helene Schulze, one of the garden’s organisers said:
“The Garden of Earthly Delights is a much-loved and much-needed oasis of green in a high-pollution, concrete-heavy area. For about 7 years this site was locked-off and barren. In just a month, 100 volunteers transformed it into this abundant garden. And for the last 9 months, we’ve tried to show that everyone deserves and needs access to green spaces”.
“We support the expansion of the station, we need to make it easier for more people to choose public transport. However, we’ve been collaborating with Hackney Council and Tfl with a proposal to transform the station into London’s first garden station. This has been productive so far and we think our proposals will be taken into consideration”
