On Friday 4th June, plans were announced to scale back the Parkway housing development, specifically the eastern side of Parkway.
Extinction Rebellion King’s Lynn & West Norfolk has consistently been trying to make the council see they shouldn’t be building on the ‘eastern side’ of the Parkway green space. The reed bed there is sucking up our carbon emissions, as well as being home to the protected water vole, and the proposed road bridge would bring more pollution right past the nearby schools. Council leaders dismissed us time and again.
We created the petition that received thousands of signatures from local people, and even Stephen Fry. We built a coalition of concerned local people which planned to mount a legal challenge. We have held rallies and artistic protests on the green space to engage and hear from nearby residents, and even taken the drastic action of spraying environmental messages on council buildings to keep the pressure on the council. It worked.
We are very pleased to see the council finally listening to the public and rolling back their plans for Parkway. The reed bed won’t be built over, and the road bridge won’t be happening.
Conversations with Norfolk Wildlife Trust are ongoing about having the eastern side classified as a County Wildlife Site or other designation. We want the nature of the eastern side, a mosaic of habitats, protected as a ‘legacy’ for the local community.
We worked in tandem with many fantastic groups and individuals on this campaign. One such person was retired borough councillor Hazel Fredericks, who brought invaluable knowledge of how the council works.
On the same day, Friday, that we heard the news about Parkway we also heard that Hazel had sadly died this week. She used the final months of her life to passionately and tirelessly campaign against developing on the eastern side of Parkway and the new road bridge, so she would have been so pleased to hear the great news. We owe her a debt of gratitude for her efforts, infectious passion, sage advice and support in this campaign.
