Advice on use of Garden Squares during the Covid-19 pandemic

Dear Garden Square News readers,

Firstly, I very much hope that you and your families are keeping well. 

As a Council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea is working hard to support local people and local businesses through this crisis. 

We also continue to follow the Government steer, advising residents to ‘Stay at Home, Protect our NHS and Save Lives’.

However, we know that for many local people our precious Garden Squares are a vital outlet at this extremely challenging time. For fresh air and short walks, as well as playtimes and workouts, local people cherish our Garden Squares. 

To that end, please follow our guidance on using Garden Squares whilst we are in lockdown, so that we can keep these lovely spaces open and safe for residents in the borough:
• Please use your garden square for a short time, primarily for your daily exercise.
• Whilst in the garden, please socially distance – a minimum of two metres apart from anyone else in the garden.
• Please keep closed or cordon off play areas or outdoor gyms as per the Government’s direction.
• If there are too many people in the garden for you to maintain safe social distancing, please do not enter.
• Please wash or sanitise your hands after touching locks or any equipment or other items in the garden.
• Please do not leave any personal litter in the garden..
• To protect both the committee and residents using the garden square and members of the public around the perimeter of the garden, committees should have public liability insurance in place because of the potential cost of settling claims, for example a tree/branch coming down and causing injury.

It would be a great help if you could share our message with residents and post a sign at the entrance of your Garden Square. 

For the latest information about the Council's Coronavirus response, please visit www.rbkc.gov.uk/coronavirus. If you have a query, please email covid-19enquiry@rbkc.gov.uk. Finally, if you'd like to sign up for our Important Updates or Emergency Updates newsletters, visit www.rbkc.gov.uk, scroll to the bottom and click 'sign up to e-newsletters'.

With best wishes,

Johnny Thalassites

April 17, 2020 | Cllr Johnny Thalassites

GARDEN SQUARES: LENGTH OF STAY

Dear Councillor

Holly has kindly circulated the Council's lock down instructions for Garden Squares. The first requirement is: Using your garden square should be for a short time only and be regarded as part of your daily exercise quota.

I appreciate that this is derived from national guidance and is therfore not something you have cooked up on your own. But it is plain silly. Garden squares are for keyholders their gardens. Why limit our use of them? They are also clever town planning because, compared with conventional private gardens, they give the individual greatly increased outdoor space. Where houses near squares have been converted into flats, there is benefit for upstairs householders never imagined by their original designers.

May I summarise? What is the logic, if we keep the distancing rule, of asking us to go into our squares only for a short time? What is the point of asking us only to go for short walks? What could possible be more beneficial than getting out into the sun and taking exercise?

Given your standing and access to our political leaders at Westminster, might you draw attentio;n to this grave shortcoming in national guidance and urge that it be changed? Silly ideas are not good government.


Terence Bendixson, 39 Elm Park Gardens, London SW10 9QF

April 26, 2020 | Terence Bendixson