Green space in Coventry

Can anyone tell me will there be any green space left in Coventry for our children to play and explore fields as we did. They are building houses on Penny Park Lane fields also on the opposite side back of the Tamworth Road from Sandpits Lane even a small piece of grass on Gutteridge Avenue, Keresley. No doubt Coundon Wedge will be next or even perhaps they will build on the graveyards next. Wilsons Lane they are building a housing estate, then other areas to the borders of Coventry. Yet they complain children are overweight also adults. The country is having to resort to fracking to get fuel, we have hose pipe bans through lack of water at times. The traffic even at the hospital is struggling and one accident on a close by motorway brings Coventry to a standstill. I recall my history how living so close in large numbers create disease. The polution with all this extra traffic fumes will be terrible. Patients can't get appointments at their doctors, our children can't get their children into their local school that have lived here for generations, neither can they get jobs.

As a lad in the 1950s my friends and I often visited a pond between Ten Shilling Wood (Canley) and Westwood Heath Road. It was a very sad day when I found out that a bank had built over it, as part of Westwood Business Park. The cottage where my maternal grandfather spent the last years of his life was demolished to make way for the Cannon Park Estate. His previous cottage in Gibbet Hill Road where he had lived between 1913 and the 1950s was demolished to accommodate Warwick University. It seems to me that every small patch of green is being concreted over. As for the amount of student residences that have been created for the two universities - well, my mind boggles. I know that the country needs thousands of houses to be built to house families but.......!!

Let's suppose that Morgana Ltd owned 'Coundon Wedge'. It will need some kind of tending and that will cost Morgana Ltd £££££. Where does Morgana Ltd get the funds and what is the return on the funds? If it is left empty for common use, the Morgana Ltd board will not be happy. I don't suppose that it is particularly good growing ground for anything other than field grass and weeds, but if Morgana Ltd introduces livestock, there will be complaints about noise and smell, and it may be against the byelaws governing what can be done with the land. Also, it may cost Morgana Ltd £10.00 per acre for a return of only £5.00, and again the Morgana Ltd board will not be happy. So, one fine day, Morgana Ltd is offered £3 million by a development company which will relieve Morgana Ltd of all responsibilities for the upkeep of the land. Would Morgana Ltd take the money? Only you know that, but most would, and that is why green spaces disappear.

Yes, there are fewer green spaces but I find Coventry to be comparatively green compared to many others, with numerous parks, pocket parks etc. The city centre has more green space than its had in years thanks to many developments being mothballed and turned into pocket parks. The spaces are still there, just with the media frenzy over the dangers to children (which are no greater than before but just reported more due to a larger and more accessible media sector) parents are reluctant to let their children use them as much. Plus the entertainment on offer with computers etc make staying indoors a lot more fun than it used to be (and I say that as only a 30-something). Mike H does highlight the economic argument, although those people fail to see the many intangible benefits which are nigh on impossible to actually put a value on and as such they get ignored. But another problem is, I have to say, over-zealousness to preserve old buildings. Developers have to jump through hoops to get plans done, and many end up being massively compromised due to this (Priory Place springs to mind with Sainsburys). In comparison getting planning permission on unbuilt land (especially non greenbelt) is so much easier in the process, design and construction. Even greenbelt with the protection they have are often a more viable option than unused already built on sites. So if we want the greenery we have to accept buildings will have to be replaced.

Well put Mike. Most of south-west Coventry (Canley, Tile Hill, Eastern Green - basically from the Kenilworth Road through to Allesley Brook)) was, prior to 1926, part of the Leigh (of Stoneleigh) Estates. It was dotted with small farms and cottages for agricultural workers. But, the bicycle and car factories of Coventry were attracting immigrants - from all over Britain I seem to have read somewhere that Coventry City council bought the land from Lord Leigh at about £125 an acre - quite a large debt to settle on its citizens. From research I know that Lord Leigh's Warwickshire lands brought him an annual income of over £22,000 per annum in the 1880s. I'll never know why my mother (1904-1975) held such reverence to Lord Leigh - though I presume it was drilled into her during her formative years which were spent in various tied cottages on Lord Leigh's land. Though some of the former Leigh lands were built upon during the 1930s it was the house-building boom of the late 1940s and 1950s that saw much of the rest of it swallowed up by council estates at Canley and Tile Hill in a bid by the council to house its citizens. At least in Canley and Tile Hill the housing didn't abutt the Coventry to Birmingham rail line, so residents didn't have trains passing within feet of their bedroom windows. I believe there's still a green swathe on the southern side of the rail track. Also there was very little use of high-rise accommodation in the area which cannot be said for areas like Hillfields. And, many of the woodlands in the area have been retained.

We played for hours on the green by the brook along Brook Road, made a cycle race track down the length of it, and the bonfire on Guy Fawkes night - amazing nobody ever got seriously injured. But we'd still walk to Foleshill Park to play on the swings, and we played football and cricket in Coundon Park. We built dens in the trees over the brook, and underground dens on the piece of land on the otherside of the road, where they've put 6 or 8 houses now. We'd walk down to Corley Rocks and play there for the day, or we'd go catching newts and tadpoles in the ponds where Cardinal Newman school is now.