It was an absolutely fantastic day on Saturday, as the community came together to open the station garden at Alexandra Palace Station. Twenty-eight pots and planters, donated by Sunshine, made by FAPS committee or sponsored by local businesses (Our Cottage, Hobart's, Tyrer Roxborough) awaited Friends and passers-by, who brought plants, met the plants that we'd bought them, or bought new plants on the day.
Our Cottage gave away delicious food and drinks, and we were joined by MP Catherine West, councillors Liz McShane, James Patterson, David Beacham and Peray Ahmet, representatives from our supporters the PGRA and Sunshine Garden Centre, and lots and lots of locals, who really made it happen. Music came from a fab local woodwind trio and jazz guitarist Brad Williams. The station staff were brilliant, and totally involved.
This is just the beginning: we are working on partnerships with Alexandra Palace itself, Alexandra Park School, Heartlands High School and many more local businesses. There will be much more scope for new Friends to join, donate plants and come together to share green fingers, general creativity and community. Once the garden is established, we intend to help with general development of the environment at the station, which could include the bridge and plans for station access. We have an excellent relationship with station management, so the more Friends we have, the more impact we can have on positively influencing these decisions. And, you know, more flowers! Hurrah. Do join online if you haven't - it's a mere fiver! But all the difference...
Do visit the updated website for pictures from Saturday and more information about joining: http://www.friendsofallypallystation.co.uk/
You need to be a member of Alexandra Park Neighbours to add comments!
Replies
Here are two of the pots (on platform 3 and 4) looking lovely and erm, well watered yesterday.
Thanks, Fredrick! Quite funny, but that's life. We're not particularly bothered about the acronym. As you'll see, the website address is the group's full name, and we don't actually use an acronym at any point in documentation. We're also primarily concerned with activities to do with enhancing the station, working to improve its environment and bringing the community together, so expect most people to be focussed on those things too.
As it happens, we'll probably appear higher in all Google search results soon in any case.
Are you a station user? Were you there on Saturday and/or have you joined? To do so, follow the links above, or simply search for 'Friends of Ally Pally Station'... ;) We're here for everyone, so hope that 'you' can become 'us'. Let's work together to improve things.
Hope to see you soon.
On the subject of the banks, we are going to ask about that, as it's obviously caused a lot of comment. While it's all the better to see the flowers on the platform, the trees seemed healthy and provided noise protection. But they must have their reasons. We want to see if it might be possible to improve all of those banks, perhaps with shrub/heather planting, to provide noise cover, a better ecosystem and discourage the litter, which is pretty terrible at the moment. One thing at a time for us, of course, but we do intend to become a Rail User Group, and be able to have a say on these matters. All the more motivation to join, folks!
It was a brilliant event, Mike, and supremely well organised! Further on the subject of the station, does anyone have any info/ideas about the clearance of trees and scrub on the bank between the station and Bedford Road? I gather one neighbour was told by Network Rail that they had done this because rats had been eating the trees' roots and making them unsafe ...