St Alfege Park Graveyard Controversy

A PUBLIC meeting almost boiled out of control last night as local residents met to discuss the future of St Alfege Park.

The normally tranquil setting of West Greenwich Library became the scene of accusations, recriminations, a walk-out and finger jabbing at the meeting – the first such meeting since the controversial smashing of headstones in St Alfege Park last year.

The meeting, which attracted about twenty people was attended by council officers, Cllr John Fahy, local ward councillor Maureen O’Mara and former Chair of the Friends of St Alfege Park, Tim Delap.

Cllr Fahy, who is the cabinet member in charge of parks in the borough, used his opening remarks to explain that the “situation regarding the headstones has caused enormous difficulties for us all.” He added that the council has “learnt some lessons in how we manage the parks and the controls we need to exercise.”

Matthew Wall, Chair of the Friends of East Greenwich Pleasaunce, was drafted in to be an independent Chair for the meeting and had to threaten to abandon it early on as voices were raised and attendees tried to talk over one another.

He attempted to set out the agenda, saying the purpose of the meeting was to work out a “positive way forward” rather than get in to the details of the headstones incident.

“Really?” interrupted one resident. “I find that quite extraordinary, I might as well leave now if that’s the case” It soon became clear there was an appetite in the room to discuss the headstone controversy.

Cllr Fahy was challenged to reveal who authorised the work on the headstones, and read an extract from an email that prompted audible gasps:

“In a letter dated the 15th September from Tim Delap to Lee Beasley [a council officer in the parks department], Tim said this:

‘My instructions to the Payback Community Team Leader were to get the stones out, whole where possible, so that we could use them for paving. But if they couldn’t, they were to remove them, however they could.’

“That’s the fact.”

Mr Alan Bradley, who was a committee member with the Friends group, said those instructions from the Friends’ Chair had not been discussed with the rest of the committee.

“Had it been discussed at committee meetings we would have objected and not allowed it to have gone ahead. The fact is that the committee were not consulted… and yet we were blamed,” he said.

Cllr Fahy revealed that a contract had been issued for work on restoring the headstones. A resident who lives next to the park asked if the council would also repair gravestones it had itself broken on previous occasions, claiming they had on occasion used a sledgehammer too. A council officer said he wasn’t aware of the council ever having done so.

Reverend Chris Moody of St Alfege Church pointed out that damage had been done to people as well as headstones in the controversy. “A great deal of good work done has been done by the Friends in the Park. That ought to be recognised and it’s a shame that is being obscured,” he said.

A lady walked out of the meeting after declaring that moving to Greenwich had been the “worst mistake of her life”, adding it was the “most aggressive place” she’d ever lived.

A new group?

With the meeting steered back on to the future, the Chair looked for expressions of interest in creating a new group as the council was refusing to work with the existing group.

“I would very much like to be involved in a new group and am prepared, as I have done in the past with lots of people in this room, to go out and do the work which is about putting the wellies on, pulling up weeds and planting stuff, ” said Cllr Maureen O’Mara.

But there was confusion when residents seemed to move away from the council’s plan of establishing a brand new group and instead put forward the idea of forming a new management committee within the existing organisation which has cash assets in the bank.

Council officers said they would need to seek policy guidance from councillors to see if that would be acceptable.

Tim Delap urged the council to consider its position “quickly”.  He pointed out that the London Marathon Charitable Trust had donated £31,000 towards a new outdoor gym in the park which would have to be returned if a brand new Friends organisation was being formed.

“If you don’t do it quickly I’ll write back and say ‘sorry we can’t use it’,” he said.

“It does seem farcical that if they [the existing group] have money a new group would be set up but I do understand why certain people should not be involved in it, ” another resident commented.

By the end of the meeting, which lasted just over an hour, it was unclear how a new Friends group will be structured but the council was left with seven names of people willing to help set it up and they resolved to meet again soon to plan the way forward.

A PUBLIC meeting will take place to discuss the formation of a new Friends group for St Alfege Park.

The council is holding the meeting, which will be independently chaired, at West Greenwich Library next Tuesday night and is encouraging local people who want to help with the park to get involved.

Greenwich Council refused to work with the previous group after the controversial smashing of headstones in the former churchyard.

In December the previous Friends group was still hopeful that it would be reprieved and voted to go into “hibernation” rather than formally disband. Those hopes now seem to have been dashed as the council looks to create a brand new group.

Doors open at 6.30 and the meeting will commence at 7pm on Tuesday March 13th.

THE FRIENDS of St Alfege Park have decided to go into hibernation in the hope of one day being allowed to return.

The decision was taken in a ballot of members at a Special General Meeting earlier this month at St Alfege Church Hall.

The meeting, which had a “thin” attendance, saw the group decide to “go into hibernation for the present and hope that Greenwich Council will eventually relent” and restore them to “full partnership.”

Other options on the ballot paper were to continue to organise events in the park or to permanently disband and dispose of the group’s assets.

The chair, Tim Delap, is believed to have resigned and two custodians will be responsible for the running of the dormant group.

The decision was brought about following the controversy this summer when headstones in St Alfege Park were smashed. Greenwich.co.uk understands that the Greenwich Council plans to constitute a new group early in 2012.

A MEETING of the Friends of St Alfege Park has been called so that the group can decide its future.

Following the smashing of headstones in the deconsecrated church yard, Greenwich Council banned the group from working in the park and severed its relationship with it.

Friends are now being asked to vote on three courses of action when they meet for the Special General Meeting:

• “We continue to organize events in the park, even though we are not permitted at
  present to do any work.”
• “We go into hibernation for the present and hope that Greenwich Council will eventually
  relent and restore us to full partnership.”
• “We disband the group and dispose of its assets in accordance with the principles set
  out in our constitution.”

THE FRIENDS of St Alfege Park have been banned from undertaking “any work whatsoever in the park,” while a new photo has raised questions about when headstones were first smashed.

The decision to forbid the Friends from working in the park was taken by the Cabinet member responsible for parks, Cllr John Fahy, and relayed in an email from Chair, Tim Delap, which has been seen by this website.

The email from Mr Delap says:

“I think that we are being made a scapegoat for the destruction of gravestones by the Probation Service community payback team, who did the actual destroying. It was never our intention as a Friends group to damage gravestones, only to move them to make way for the community garden facility and then reuse them as paving in another project.

“I have as you know issued a public apology both personally and on your behalf, and had hoped that that would be sufficient. It appears not, and I am afraid that we are to be sacrificed on the altar of political expediency.”

Doubt will hang over the future over the group with it confined in future only to promoting events in the park. The Chair goes on to say in his email:

“In banning the group, I personally think that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater and that John is doing more harm to the park than by allowing us to continue under closer supervision, which we would have welcomed.”

Following the outcry at the destruction, Councillor Fahy ordered the removal of the broken headstones and their storage at a secure location while consideration is given to creating a “memorial heritage path” or a rockery, in consultation with groups such as English Heritage, The Georgian Group and the Mausolea and Monuments Trust.

An Extraordinary General Meeting is being called by the Chair of the Friends to discuss the future of the group.

Question marks remain

Uncertainly lingers over the chronology of events in St Alfege Park which led to historic headstones in the deconsecrated churchyard being smashed to smithereens.

In his email to Friends, the Chair says it was the Payback Workers that “did the actual destroying” but the Probationary Service has suggested they were continuing work that was already under way.

They say that other than one day in July, they only worked on the headstones in SEPTEMBER but Greenwich.co.uk has obtained a photo of smashed headstones taken in AUGUST.

A spokesperson for the London Probation Trust told Greenwich.co.uk:

“Work began on the Community Payback project in St Alfege Park in June 2011 and consisted of clearing an area to create a new raised flower bed.

“Aside from one day removing headstones in July no other work took place regarding removal/breaking up of stonework until September.”

This photo showing a pile of smashed headstones in the park was taken on August 30th by local illustrator Sarah McIntyre for her blog.

Council officers are currently investigating the incident to ascertain exactly what happened.

The controversial destruction of headstones in St Alfege Park caused outrage and made headlines on websites around the world, and was featured in the Daily Mirror, Private Eye, the Evening Standard and this month’s edition of Family Tree magazine.

Read all of Greenwich.co.uk’s coverage of the St Alfege Park controversy

UPDATED 26th January 2012

An FOI request was submitted to the London Probation Trust asking them to provide a log of all their activities and visits to St Alfege Park during 2011. The results are published below:

St Alfege Church

The Chair of the Friends of St Alfege Park, Tim Delap, has made his first comments since the controversy broke over the damage to headstones.

In the statement, the Chair says he “deeply regrets” the damage caused and goes on to say that the Friends are now “reorganising their… management processes”.

Tim Delap’s statement is below:

As Chair person of the Friends of St Alfege Park, I deeply regret and apologise personally and on behalf of the Friends for the damage caused to gravestones in St Alfege Park during work carried out at our request for our community garden project. The Friends are now urgently reorganising their work and management processes to ensure that we safeguard the infrastructure of the Park, including the memorials, in all our future activities.

In response to the recent controversy over St Alfege Park, the Friends of St Alfege Park have issued the following statement:

There has been much public outrage at the recent destruction of gravestones in St Alfege Park. The Friends of the Park greatly regret our part in this distressing occurrence. While writing this statement we have been unable to contact the Chair of the Friends group, who had been working with a Community Payback team on a project in that area. He is out of the country and is due back on Thursday, 29 September.

In the Chair’s absence, the Friends have sought to investigate events and we believe the following to be an accurate account.

In the process of tidying a neglected area of the park, the Community Payback team were asked to remove nettles and other plants that had invaded the ground and adjoining gravestones along a short stretch of perimeter wall at the east end of the park. The Friends have been working in that area to establish one of 2012 community gardening areas in London for the year 2012, with the help of grants from Greenwich Pride and Capital Growth. The site was agreed on in consultation with Parks and Open Spaces.

We believe that the intention was to move any stones that had to be disturbed to a storage area in front of the Old Mortuary building, and that when some were damaged by attempts to remove the plants it proved impossible to carry them and they were broken up. In the event, and for reasons we do not know, they were all broken up.

We greatly regret this, and we hope to work with the Council and local community to look at appropriate ways to reuse the broken stones, for example, by creating a memorial garden.

Although each of these 25 or 30 stones is a part of the history of Greenwich, well over 400 similar gravestones are similarly propped against the parks perimeter walls. We consider that they are all important and of great local interest, though many of those remaining are also illegible and crumbling and they no longer mark actual graves, having been moved from their original positions decades ago.

We hope that Greenwich residents will remember how hard the Friends have worked in the park since the group of local volunteers was set up in 2009, including introducing nest-boxes and regular feeding for small birds, planting more than 100 trees and bushes, taking part in the RSPB big garden birdwatch, introducing new picnic tables, installing new name plaques, holding regular working mornings and running various events including Parksfest 2010 and 2011 and will understand that we, too, are distressed at what has happened.

Suzanne Miller and Johanna Taylor, Friends of St Alfege Park

GREENWICH Council says it is “appalled” at the destruction of headstones in St Alfege Park.

The decision to remove and smash to pieces some of the headstones in the park, first reported by Greenwich.co.uk last Friday, has caused local outrage and even been reported on in today’s Daily Mirror and Evening Standard.

It has also been revealed that the council took emergency legal measures to prevent any further action taking place in the park.

A Greenwich Council spokesperson said:

“Greenwich Council is appalled by what has happened in St Alfege Park and we understand how this will cause distress to a great number of people.

“Without the Council’s prior knowledge, the local Friends of Park group instructed a Community Payback team to break and move a number of headstones in St Alfege Park. No graves were affected. As the Council was unable to reach anyone in authority to cease the activity, it issued a legal notice to prevent the group carrying out further works.

“The Council is looking to create an appropriate setting for the headstones.”

The cabinet member responsible for parks, Councillor John Fahy, tweeted on Monday night, “Friends of St Alfege Park have seriously damaged their credibility. Breaking up these historic Headstones simply pure vandalism.”

A statement from the Friends of St Alfege Park is expected later this week.