Green Woman Oasis project, Downham: the community had a plan for health and nature - what happened?

Downham Community Land Trust (CLT) was approached by the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2019.

"They actually wrote to us and invited us in, they wanted to spend money in the area," explained Tim Oshodi who leads Downham CLT.

Downham CLT along with the Sevenfields Primary Care Network (PCN), a group of local GP practices, and others in the community had been developing plans for Whitefoot Lane playing fields and the nearby Woodland Walk for over a decade.

They had held a series of meetings with Lewisham council education department, planning officers and local schools.

The previous Lewisham mayor, Damian Egan supported their vision and invited them to proceed to the feasibility stage.

The community groups planned to join up existing green spaces around the site, creating a nature reserve with jobs for young wardens.

The sports pitches would be opened to local schools, as required by the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) when it transferred the lease to Lewisham council in 1990.

Downham's Sevenfields PCN saw the opportunity to extend and improve residents' use of local green spaces, and to begin addressing health inequalities.

Structural racism and health inequality

Downham is an area of high deprivation and health inequality. Recent research has found structural racism and health inequality across Lewisham.

Birmingham and Lewisham African Caribbean Health Inequalities review (BLACKHIR) reported on the health inequalities experienced by Black African and Caribbean communities in 2022, and Lewisham council has committed to following its recommendations.

Downham CLT and Sevenfields PCN's shared vision aimed to directly address health inequality - they would develop the playing fields as an asset for local people, using the green space to improve the health of local communities.

Nature reserve linking Green Woman Oasis and Downham Woodland Walk

They planned to restore the "Green Woman Oasis" pond and ancient woodland along Whitefoot Lane, while a raised walkway at tree canopy level would connect the sites with a new nature reception centre and with Downham Woodland Walk.

The woodland walk is already a Site of borough importance for Nature Conservation (SINC), the plans would have brought the connected sites up to the conservation status of a nature reserve.

There would be 12 tree houses surrounding the pond, built by the community, alongside affordable housing for young wardens.

Oshodi is uniquely well-placed to lead in turning the vision into reality - in addition to his experience in regeneration, he was one of the original self-builders who formed black-led housing co-op Fusions Jameen.

Co-op members built their own eco-homes at Nubia Way and two other Lewisham sites, during the 90s. When the self-builders moved into their homes, they paid reduced social rents in return for their unpaid labour.

Preston model of Community Wealth Building

A key part of the vision was to grow "community wealth and social capital".

The approach is based on the Preston model of Community Wealth Building, adopted by Lewisham council, and would aim to attract different funding streams.

It would build on Downham's key assets, "outstanding green spaces, the woodlands and the people of the area and their community links (social capital)".

The land trust planned to get more community value from green spaces, while involving local people in the management and governance of their own parks, and creating jobs. Parks would be held in a "part-trust" and managed as a community asset.

"If you want to do this long term, you have to have a proper land strategy," Oshodi said. "You need to own the land."

The partnership of community groups continued discussions with the Heritage Lottery Fund and they were going well.

The Heritage Lottery Fund had put at least £4 million into the restoration of the Bellingham Fellowship and Star. They recognised the deprivation and lack of facilities in the area and were keen to invest in another project in South Lewisham.

"They were prepared to offer us funding, up to a total budget of £10m," Oshodi said.

Council officers "blocked it"

The Lewisham mayor at the time, Damian Egan, was encouraging and the team were ready to prepare the Expression of Interest for lottery funding, before going on to the Feasibility study.

But Oshodi described how for the next 18 months, council officers failed to provide the costs for running the sports field. "They blocked it."

Emails flew backwards and forwards. Without confirmation of the running costs, Downham CLT could not submit a well-founded proposal and the project stalled.

The pandemic began and Heritage Lottery changed its funding priorities to support existing projects.

The Trust, GPs and local schools approached the council again in 2023. They proposed plans to upgrade the dilapidated changing rooms into a healthy living centre, restore the Green Woman Oasis pond and address local health inequalities.

The Healthy Living Centre would be located in the playing fields at the far end of the current changing rooms, and would host different community health initiatives, classes and services.

But this time, they found no support. The council was pursuing its own plans to install an artificial grass football pitch next to the ancient pond.

Local schools were told in March 2024 that contrary to earlier discussions, there would be no opportunities for them to use the playing fields and Woodland Walk for learning in nature, eg forest school activities or a tree walk.

"Officers stopped the local heads from even discussing their aspirations for forest school.  Downham community experiences this as further discrimination against Downham residents," said Oshodi.

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Lewisham Local Plan - use of green spaces to address health inequality

Downham CLT fed into the Local Plan during 2024, finding that it failed to take on board issues of health equity and to tackle environmental racism.

HM Inspectors agreed and required the council to make changes showing how inclusion and equality would be addressed, in collaboration with Downham CLT.

The council has made updates, but the Trust argue that the plan still fails to recognise "systemic discrimination and structural racism .. which causes disproportionate health impacts on Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups".

It fails to acknowledge "the contribution Lewisham's green spaces can make to fulfilment of its Public Sector Equalities duty," and is still "turning away from partnerships with local community organisations to addressing health inequality."

Lewisham council announced in July that it had secured £840,000 from the Lottery Heritage Fund to boost health and wellbeing and increase wildlife and biodiversity.

It will have "a special focus on historically underserved ethnically diverse communities, people with disabilities and others who are less likely to access parks and green spaces."

Oshodi sees ghosts of Downham communities' vision in the council's lottery funding bid, but now converted into a top-down approach, managed by the council.

The council will control funding while community groups jostle for a share. The vision of community wealth building and increasing social capital has gone.

Plans to transfer the lease to Bonus Pastor college

Salamander asked the council why it had not engaged with Downham CLT and Sevenfields PCN regarding their plans to open part of the site as a nature reserve, restore the pond and increase access to the sports pitches.

A council spokesperson responded: "This site is a school playing field and our priority is to provide facilities for pupils to take part in sport."

They confirmed that Bonus Pastor Catholic College is the only school using the pitch on a regular basis.

The school is part of St Benedict Catholic Academy Trust within the Archdiocese of Southwark, its admissions policy has no reference to the local area and only around 30% of the pupils are from Downham.

As the council prepares to transfer the long-term lease for the playing fields to Bonus Pastor, its equalities statement speaks to the students from one school only.

Downham communities' hopes for public access, addressing health inequalities and a nature reserve lie in tatters.

Bonus Pastor school did not respond to a request for comment.

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