Read on Twitter
This price hike plus the move to an online booking system should have Heath swimmers very concernedâand if it is not dissolved post-covid will amount to the privatisation the Corporation have been gunning for for years, by stealth. Theyâve tried before. https://twitter.com/CityCorpHeath/status/1273232369932275712
I wrote a PhD about privatisation on the Heath. Fee attempts ca. 2010: "Early iterations of the redesigns for the swimming ponds proposed turnstile access at the gates, effectively allowing the CoLC to carry out a long-established effort to intro fees for swimming on the Heath"
"The introduction of fees for swimming has, for many decades, been a contentious matter on the Heath and is viewed by many swimmers as a key part of efforts to 're-enclose' the Heath, essentially rendering a public open space into private land."
And 2004, from @CaitlinDavies2 Taking the Waters: âThe KLPA met in a local church. Members said the Heath was common land, as established by the 1871 Act, and didnât belong to the CoL in the first place. If charges were made for bathing then what would happen next, a kiosk...
selling ice cream? What if people would one day be charged just to go on the Heath?â
This concern, of course, was one that originally resulted in the acquisition of the Heath for the public: in mid-19th C, Heath landowner T.M. Wilson attempted to intro fees to access the Heath.
This concern, of course, was one that originally resulted in the acquisition of the Heath for the public: in mid-19th C, Heath landowner T.M. Wilson attempted to intro fees to access the Heath.
This isn't a matter of bougie land concerns, but perpetual, historic encroachments on access to space given over to the public in perpetuity. Yes, the ponds need to be safe & the lifeguards need paying. Yes, the lifeguards will be frontline & don't deserve the grief for this.
The context for the CoL holding the Heath was the dissolution of the GLC under Thatcher. They do not own it, but continually attempt to privatise it: see also the cafe bids in 2016.
In short, this shift is historically precedented and needs to be watched VERY CAREFULLY.
In short, this shift is historically precedented and needs to be watched VERY CAREFULLY.
If you'd like to read about all these successive attempts plus the ones previous to itâdating back to the 1830sâmy PhD is here: https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/xmlui/handle/10315/32682
