SOME time in late 1997, I first noticed a large area of space on the edge of Southall, and decided to explore it. Technically, it was part of St George’s parish; so I was doing my parish visiting.
As I walked around, I discovered abandoned fridges and boxes of computer parts, plastic bags blown against the fence, and thick muddy puddles spread everywhere by tyre marks. Walking on, I found a pond full of reed mace, choked with rubbish, and then a line of mature trees that followed an ancient field-boundary.
Following the tree line, avoiding the deep ruts from off-road motorcycles and burned-out cars, I reached a small river, which the map told me was Yeading Brook. Then I came to a bridge, and a large metal fence with broken gates; so I walked on. I was now standing on a narrow strip of land between the river and the Grand Union Canal.
It was totally overgrown with brambles, and invasive introduced plants such as giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed and Himalayan balsam. Yet it was also a quiet place, where the hum of traffic from the M4 and the planes from Heathrow Airport faded into the background.
I thanked God for this wild corner of west London, which had somehow remained largely green. Hearing bird calls, I looked up with my binoculars. A flock of redpolls — small, streaky finches with bright red foreheads — were flitting around in a birch tree by the canal. Then a kingfisher darted past.
Here was a deserted wilderness in the middle of urban sprawl; a place of neglect and deliberate abuse, yet that still had traces of old meadows, hedges, trees, and ponds, with wildlife hanging on.
Walking home, I remembered words God had whispered to me some years earlier, but this time they were slightly different: “How do you think I feel about this place?”
I BEGAN to wonder whether the twin passions my wife Anne and I shared, for Southall and for A Rocha, a Christian conservation group we had encountered in Portugal, could be combined. Was the urban wasteland I had been exploring a possible A Rocha site?
Surely A Rocha was about beautiful, inspiring wild locations? Could it also be about the realities of urban living, of trying to balance the needs of people and wildlife in a place like London? The more I thought about it, the more the idea of an urban A Rocha project grew on me.
Living in Southall, I had become increasingly aware of the effect of an urban landscape upon local people. A document produced by Southall Regeneration Partnership said: “There is a lack of greenery, open space, clean air, and environmental awareness — all of which contribute to a lack of confidence and pride in the area.”
Southall scored high in national statistics for mental illness, and lack of access to green spaces was considered to be a contributing factor. Theologically, this made sense. God made the first human beings to enjoy his company in a garden. And, while the biblical story is not against cities — after all, the final chapters of the Bible describe a heavenly city — it is ultimately a garden city, a combination of God’s creation and the best of human creativity.
Our modern mega-cities often seem to be parasitic in the way they sustain their growth and greed by sucking resources and goodness out of the natural world. Was a different vision possible, a city where nature was appreciated for its beauty and nurtured for its provision?
I was also acutely aware that churches in Southall were making little impact on the community. Here was a multifaith town where the churches appeared to be an irrelevant relic of the past. This myth was destroyed on meeting the vibrant multiracial congregations, but it remained the prevailing impression of Southall Christianity.
What if Christians were at the heart of a project that benefited the whole community? What if the local environment was improved because of a vision of hope that came from the Christian faith? Could this help dissolve the myth that this was an irrelevant religion with nothing to say to 21st-century Londoners?
I BEGAN to visit the piece of land regularly, walking and praying around it, and recording its wildlife. I also started to research the site itself.
Long ago, the Minet site — named, as I discovered, after the family who once owned it — would have been heath and farmland, lying between the hamlets of Southall and Hayes. Some of it was once water meadows grazed by cattle, and lines of mature trees followed old field boundaries dating back several hundred years.
When London grew, part of Minet was used for allotments; the northern end became a Victorian rubbish-tip before being landscaped, and the strip between the canal and the river was used for decades to dump canal dredgings.
After the Greater London Council was abolished, the main site’s ownership transferred to the London Borough of Hillingdon. Since then, it had been largely neglected, apart from a cycle circuit created at one end in the 1990s.
At an A Rocha supporters’ day, at Kew Gardens, early in 1998, I gave a short presentation on possibilities in the UK, slipping in the idea of an urban project in Southall. I expected a negative reaction, knowing how many had visited Portugal and dreamed of a coastal paradise for A Rocha UK. Instead, the supporters encouraged me to explore the idea further, saying this could be an important complement to A Rocha’s work in Portugal.
As I spoke to local people, it became clear that there was a history around Minet of pressure to develop and build, prevented only by its greenbelt classification. And this isn’t too surprising; for Minet is only 15 minutes by car from Heathrow Airport; so the potential commercial value of a 90-acre site like this was immense.
Over the years it had gradually become degraded, not just from car-boot sales, motorcycle scrambling, and burned-out cars, but by poor fencing that allowed illegal fly-tipping. One whole field was waist-deep in rubble, lorry tyres, asbestos roof tiles, old refrigerators, and much more.
When I talked to British Waterways about the strip of land next to the canal, they pointed out severe soil contamination: heavy metals and cyanides allegedly dumped decades previously from an adjacent gasworks. The millions it would cost to clean this up could be recovered only by a major development on the site. Removing the contamination would also temporarily destroy most of the wildlife habitats.
Several people encouraged me to talk to the MP for Hayes and Harlington, John McDonnell. Here was a real ally, and he proposed an informal forum of those with an interest in the site.
The first few meetings were pretty tense, with a lot of verbal shadow-boxing, testing out everyone’s strength of feeling and support. But then, suddenly, things began moving quickly.
I was still full-time Vicar of St George’s, Southall, in London, and A Rocha UK did not even exist legally — there was just an informal network of those supporting the work in Portugal. Peter Harris, by now international director of A Rocha, suggested that we form a board of trustees and register A Rocha UK as a charity. He encouraged me to think about moving on from my parish job to become founding director of A Rocha UK.
Peter also put me in touch with John Smiley, who became chairman of A Rocha UK. And gradually other key people fell into place, with skills in areas as diverse as conservation science, finance, charity governance, law, and publicity. Crucially, these people were also all wise and prayerful.
I then went to speak to the Bishop of Willesden, the Rt Revd Graham Dow. He was really helpful, initially urging me to see if I could combine A Rocha with parish work; but when I explained that I would need to preach about A Rocha around the UK, he agreed that I needed to be full-time.
WE DECIDED to launch A Rocha UK in February 2001. I didn’t sleep at all the night before the launch — there was so much that could go wrong, and I had no sense of peace. But the day went like a dream. More than 300 people turned up, the launch made the front page of the local paper, and even BBC London turned up to film it.
We heard powerful speeches from Mr McDonnell, who spoke warmly of A Rocha’s work, and from Sir Ghillean Prance (a former director of Kew Gardens), who spoke about his passion for plants, and for Jesus. There was a short walk around the Minet site, and one elderly lady spoke of how this project gave her, after 50 years of Christian faith, a new insight into the meaning of redemption.
After the wonderful launch, suddenly it was all official. I wasn’t a vicar any more, I was director of A Rocha UK. In practice, all it meant was that instead of working from a warm study in a large vicarage, I was working from a small, cold, wooden shed-office at the bottom of the garden.
As 2001 progressed, the project’s finances ran lower and lower, until at one point we had only just over one month’s salary in the bank. On many occasions I wondered whether it was all a big mistake.
I rushed around filling my diary with meetings, whipping up support by speaking to schools and churches, lobbying politicians, writing letters, or looking for rare wildlife that might guarantee the Minet site’s protection.
It took me a very long time to realise that this was God’s project, not mine, and that, however hard I worked, I couldn’t make it happen by myself. And every now and then something would happen that forcibly reminded me that this was, in fact, God’s project.
The more we learned about the story of the Minet site, the crazier our vision seemed to become. We found that there had been various plans to develop the site over the years, and 90 acres of prime land situated near the M4 and Heathrow Airport were not going to be saved without a fight.
Greenbelt classification meant that Minet was, theoretically, protected from development for housing or business. But various groups had their eyes on the land, for a sports stadium. From the meetings with the MP, the council, and other interested parties, I knew that reaching an agreement wouldn’t be easy. And, even if we got approval, it was going to cost well over £1 million to clean up the site, put in landscaping and fencing, and plant it with trees. Where was all that going to come from?
DISCUSSIONS continued throughout 2001. In December 2001, the London Borough of Hillingdon finally submitted its own planning application to turn Minet into a country park. It was a document we’d worked on together for many months, and everyone turned out to the council meeting at which it was to be approved.
But at the crucial meeting, on 18 April 2002, it became clear that not everybody shared the vision. Despite all the work, the planning decision was postponed on a technicality. Rumours were flying around about links with a football club and secret plans to build a huge stadium.
As an A Rocha team, we walked around Minet, praying for God’s protection and healing on the land. We emailed A Rocha supporters near and far, and I wrote to the Bishop of Willesden asking if he would forward a request to churches to pray about the planning decision. I also suggested that church members might like to write to their local councillors giving their views on the value of protecting Minet.
On 30 May, the planning committee met again in a totally different atmosphere. Councillors spoke in favour of the country park, and we were granted permission for work to begin. I thought back to late 1997, when I’d first sensed God asking: “How do you think I feel about this place?” Now, I was beginning to sense how God felt.
This is an edited extract from God Doesn’t Do Waste: Redeeming the whole of life (IVP, £7.99 (CT Bookshop £7.20); 978-1844744732).