The Big Smoke

It's enough to bring tears to your eyes. Yesterday, I was standing in a desolate and muddy field in Leyton as 76-year-old veteran gardener Reg showed me what was left of the Manor Garden Allotments. These once beautiful, lush and lovingly-tended plots were originally located off Waterden Road in Hackney Wick, and the site was an urban oasis filled with ponds, butterflies, and bursting with fruit and veg. Last September, the site was closed and the gardeners were relocated by the London Development Agency (LDA) to Marsh Road in Leyton to make way for the construction of a footbridge which is part of the 2012 Olympic development.

But the new site has yielded little so far apart from yellowing and decaying onions and mouldy lettuces. The problem: the soil for the new site hadn't been constructed properly for horticulture, leaving many of the plots completely waterlogged. What was once a thriving community of gardeners of all ages and backgrounds has been left demoralised and bitter about the way in which they have been treated by the Olympic authorities.

If there was ever an example of how the 'little' people get screwed over for the sake of large scale projects, it is here. Surely, it wouldn't have taken too much imagination for somebody in the LDA, the multi-million pound government agency which is behind the Olympic development, to come up with a scheme to incorporate this prime example of a green, multicultural, sustainable community (all the things that the London Olympics professes to be promoting) within the Olympic plans.

The whole episode has been a complete disgrace. In the words of Reg: 'They've relocated us from paradise to a swamp.'

Any other tales of Olympic-induced woe? Let us know.

The Manor Garden Allotments is holding an Open Day on June 21 For details, click here.

Want to know more about this story? See Big Smoke in next week's issue of Time Out