If children are to be banned from social media, shouldn't outdoor activity be encouraged? But the Nimby don't even want to allow that
An outdoor activity, involving climbing trees and navigating elevated walkways between them. A bit of swinging into rope nets involved, too. Fun for the whole family - if it's allowed
This week, Nimby Watch is in Danson Park, Bexley, in South East London. But why?
I see we’re in a park! You never bring me anywhere nice. It’s a particularly nice park, too! Danson Park, which celebrated its 100th birthday last year, has a lake – which hosts boating and water sports activities – football pitches, tennis courts, bowling greens, and children’s playgrounds. It hosts Parkrun at the weekends, and occasionally hosts circuses and funfairs.
It sounds lovely. Knowing you, I suppose you want it to be demolished and replaced with 15,000 high-rise studio flats, or something. For once, no one is proposing demolishing or abolishing the park, or building any homes on it. It is very much staying open for business.
Just get to the ‘but’ already. Okay, fine, but…there’s a proposal to build a Go Ape site on the park, which is proving incredibly contentious, even by Nimby Watch standards.
What’s Go Ape, then? Some kind of animal testing lab? It is an outdoor activity, involving climbing trees and navigating elevated walkways between them. There’s usually a bit of swinging into rope nets involved, too. Fun for the whole family!
That does sound like the sort of thing that people should do in parks. There’s some kind of trap here, though, right? They are going to build a huge warehouse to host it, or shut off the park to the public? Mostly, the facilities are just bits of equipment hanging between trees, and they’re not visible from any distance. They are building some canvas shelters for people going around the course, and an existing changing rooms building would be clad with timber under the plans.
“The more children you let play in a park, the higher the chance at least one of them gets abducted. That’s just statistics. If you want the park to be entirely safe, there’s only one way forward: ban kids”
Okay, I can cope with a bit of timber cladding. So…what are you leaving out? Why are people getting angry? Well, if you let something like Go Ape open in a park, people might use it. Objecting residents have warned it could harm wildlife, though there are no protected species on the site, and Go Ape is building bird homes, hedgehog nests, and similar. Others complained it meant more children could use the park, which one noted could lead to more child abductions in the area.
Oh come on, you’re just cherry picking a few silly objections here. Well, they’re not technically wrong: the more children you let play in a park, the higher the chance at least one of them gets abducted. That’s just statistics. If you want the park to be entirely safe, there’s only one way forward: ban kids.
That’s not exactly a response to my accusation. Well, there are so many silly objections to choose from: residents sent 493 formal objections to the proposals, while a change.org petition attracted 2,262 signatures too. There was a lot of local anger, but things really kicked off at the council meeting to make the final decision.
This isn’t going to be a banner moment for local democracy, is it? I can just feel it. Well, according to Conservative councillor Barry Saunders, the problem is that in Bexley “some of our youths are not nice youths”. Build something nice for people, he warned, and the bad youths might use it too. Saunders continued by telling the meeting that “we have had people cutting heads off cats”.
So…if we let Go Ape build in Bexley Park, cats will be decapitated? Apparently so: that’s just how cause and effect works. The disturbing idea of beheaded moggies might sound familiar to some: there was a three-year media scare over the so-called “Croydon Cat Killer”, a supposed serial killer of kittens, travelling the country, leaving more than 400 victims in their wake. Police were forced to investigate, and found the culprit was almost certainly more mundane: foxes, if they find an injured cat, often remove its head.
Well. That’s upsetting. Happily, foxes aren’t among the known customers of Go Ape. And Bexley councillors weren’t moved by the many arguments against building the outdoor play centre – it was approved, much to the chagrin of campaigners alarmed by the idea of their local park allowing children to play, make noise, or in any way have fun.
Well, yes, children shouldn’t be outdoors. They should be on the internet, getting radicalised, or whatever they do nowadays. Well, they better enjoy that while they can, before Keir Starmer bans them from doing that, too. Then they can look forward to spending their weekend staring at the walls. Finally, a healthy way for kids to spend their time.
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