Julia Batt

Liberal Democrat Councillor for Heath Ward Learn more

Yalding Organic Gardens

by Julia on 12 April, 2008

I have just sent off the following email to Garden Organic:

Hi there,

 

I received a letter in the post this morning reminding me that my membership is expiring.

 

I became a member specifically because of the beautiful gardens at Yalding that I visited all to infrequently with my family. I was disappointed to learn, through the press, rather than through yourselves of the closure of this area. Whilst I understand your ever increasing costs, and the difficulty you must be faced with, I think the manner in which this was handled was totally unacceptable.

 

Again, reported in the local press have been stories that many people gave donations recently for projects in Yalding – what is happening to this money? Will these people be refunded?

 

I have made the decision that as someone that rarely travels outside of the area, there is no longer any justification for retaining my membership.

 

I wish you well with your enterprise and hope that you can resolve your financial difficulties.

 

Julia Batt

I fully support the work of Garden Organic – the national charity that encourages organic growing, but I seriously can’t justify £36 a year for what for me, really equates to four magazines a year. They do offer lots of other perks for members, but I just don’t use them. As I said in my letter, the real reason I was a member was purely for Yalding organic gardens – if you never had the oppurtunity to go, you’ve missed out on a really beautiful and calm place.

My favourite part (and the kids for that matter) was the ‘war garden’ which showed how people maximised the use of a small area to grow their own food, when rationing was such a huge difficulty. I wonder how we’d all cope if we were rationed these days? Not too well I suspect!

   1 Comment

One Response

  1. John Tate says:

    I am sure there are very many people feeling the same way Julia. I appreciate that as an organisation, Garden Organic are facing financial difficulties (which seems strange in a time of such increased ‘green awareness’) – but they have really ‘messed-up’ on the PR side of this one.

    I don’t know if you may have already seen it – but may I refer you to our website at http://www.saveyaldingorganicgardens.co.uk – where we are trying to keep people informed of what is going on at Yalding.

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