Creeping suburbanisation of Salisbury's parks

I USED to walk the dog in Queen Elizabeth Gardens maybe once a fortnight. He loves to jump into the river at the little beach area and fetch a stick, and passers-by are always amused by his headlong enthusiasm.

Having given up on the habit while the noisy and messy refurbishment work was going on, for some reason I hadn’t strolled across Town Path from Harnham for months.

So on Sunday when I finally got round to it, what I found came as quite a surprise.

I know the old planting needed replacing, and that new planting schemes take a while to mature, and that’s fine. We’ll just have to be patient. It’s a work in progress.

But in the meantime the hard landscaping is just that – hard on the eye.

In a less-than-mellow shade of yellow, it looks as if someone has simply upended a few dozen packets of Rice Krispies on the pathways. This gritty stuff is being trodden all over the place, filling the gaps between the boards on the bridges, and spilling over onto the grass, and whatever lies underneath it is already starting to show through.

I remember when the parks department wanted to build a diagonal path across Harnham recreation ground. That was going to be golden breakfast cereal, too. Residents protested that it would stand out like an airport runway, and the project was shelved, thank goodness.

In my view both these much-loved parks should be treated, as far as possible, as visual extensions of the water meadows, since they lie at either end of them. That means green, leafy and natural.

The city council’s wildflower planting in the Harnham field was a welcome and appropriate addition.  But the Environment Agency’s flood defence scheme with its pumping station control kiosk has already spoiled the view towards the picturesque Old Mill. And now a bright red charity clothing bank is sprouting an unsightly crop of carrier bags at the entrance from Netherhampton Road.

It may be for a good cause, but haven’t we got enough recycling facilities at charity shops in town, at Churchfields, and at skips in our supermarket car parks?

Part of Salisbury’s charm lies in the way these two parks have remained semi-rural oases, linked by the Town Path, within the heart of a built-up area. They are places where we could almost imagine ourselves to be in the countryside. I’d be sorry to lose that.