Much of the greenery running alongside the inside wall of the tennis courts next to the Ranger’s House has been uprooted and removed. If you use the courts, do you think it looks tidier or has part of its character been removed along with the shrubs and bushes?
I was quite saddened to see this incomprehensible despoilment. I have frequently used these courts, and one of their attractions was the lovely, characterful setting afforded by the surrounding vegetation. Hidden behind high walls, the courts had the feel of a timeless secret garden.
The stretch that has now been sterilised was formally a pleasing collage of shrubs, bushes, ferns and ivy. Now we have but a bare brick wall.
I am at a loss to understand the motive for this vandalistic extirpation. Did some Inspector from some body or committee, with a paucity of ecological thinking and a philistine’s eye, decide that charm had no place beside a tennis court? If so, let me strongly contradict and say that tennis in Blackheath has now been impoverished.
And what of the cost? The greenery along the middle stretch seems to have been utterly removed – a hard days’ uprooting work that had to be paid for. The ignorant act was worse than a waste of money, it was wilfully spending money to have things put wrong.