They want to cut about 40 trees down I think. What gets me is the Bancroft gardens are my favourite part of STratford. Near the top is one of the last refuges from the crowdes and the tourists, and boasts from beautiful trees. THe council wants to turn most of it into pathways and more tourist attractions.

Tourists and money, that's all that seems to matter. It won't be long before the open fields the other side of the river are dug up and turned into more shops and houses. It's my firm belief that this is the real reason for the bridge. I don't think they'll be happy until every blade of grass in Stratford is uprooted.

The worst part is, Stratford does badly need modernising. But the council seem to want to do this at the expence of Stratford's natural beauty, and by installing ugly buildings that in no one fit in with their surroundings. The new RSC is going to look incredably tacky, just like the new (and already largely unused) bell court.

The "sculpure" on the banbury road is just one example of how they get it so wrong. It's not only ugly, it's completely and utterly irrelivant. It doesn't have to be about Shakespear, but it could at least have something to do with the market town we know as STratford Upon Avon!

Rant over!

Will,

I was in Bancroft Gardens on the 7th July when there was a group holding a petition about the felling of the trees and the plans for a new bridge. My husband and I signed the petition. The group of people holding the protest were , i think ,called - Stratford Vioce- and they said they are setting up a website. so I gave them my details.
here is a link
Sign-A-Thon weekend brings Human Rights to the fore - Stratford upon Avon - Latest Local News

I think locals should be up in arms about these proposals.

18 July 2007
The plans to fell and replace trees in the Bancroft Gardens, in Stratford-upon-Avon, succeeded when the rug was pulled from under the feet of protesters.

To consider World Class Stratford's proposals for redeveloping the gardens and the recreation ground, Stratford District Council’s west area planning committee met and at that time, Cllr Richard Hobbs (Cons, Snitterfield), the chairman declared that the trees were not for discussion.

A cry of "disgraceful” was provoked from the public gallery by his comment and later, his action was described as "dishonest" by former Stratford mayor, Cllr Bill Lowe.

The planning application which includes re-landscaping the gardens and 'rec' and, controversially, replacing the lockbridge at the entrance to the canal basin was agreed by the committee to approve unanimously.

Objectors to the tree scheme protested in the Bancroft Gardens on 7th July.

The worst part Mari. Is the council have yet to give a single justification for these extremely expencive alterations, and why it was necessay to come up with a plan that meant taking down so many of the trees which have probably been there since Shakespeare's days.

It is shameful. I'm still in favour of Stratford getting modernised, but modernised doesn't have to mean destroying what we already have, and changing buildings to something you could imagine being sold at Ikea.

World class Stratford is a joke, because the people who are in charge of it, clearly have no idea, and are completely uninterested in the opinions of the people who live here.

IT'S THE SAME HERE IN COVENTRY.
Medieval Coventry,--a few bits left, it's a joke.
Piecemeal building , big ideas.
Got some money--let's use it on a new hairbrained scheme which no-one wants, forget the holes in the roads. That ancient building there?--let it rot until it's too far gone , then we can knock it down and build a new monstrosity, or make a new one way system.
Anything for money.
Last week I went to see The Coventry Charterhouse which was bequeathed to the citizens of Coventry by a benefactor .
It was a lovely mediaeval building by the river---lots of -our-money was spent on it in the 80s.
Now it is a boarded up wreck-part of it used by Tile hill College-but the rest , a mess, and the Elizabethan garden which was restored in the 8os at exraordinary expense, is no more than a wilderness.
Of course the people who planned all this have moved on to other towns-probably Stratford (beware) and cannot be blamed now, but we have a new lot every few years who do radical things and move on as before.
The problem also is that the people in charge are not interested in Coventry-don't want to know the 'feel' of it or the people---armchair planners.
The same goes for Stratford-upon Avon. You have to watch them ---and complain before it is too late---it can be done ---remember the glass spire that some joker decided was a 'must have' for Coventry? well that died a quick death after all the complaints. (I complained with a poem)