Where it all started…
In the second half of 2018, a group of six concerned women who lived and worked and ran independent businesses in Newark got together over coffee and cake at Carriages Café at Newark Castle Station.
Our concern was to address the decline in the Newark town centre as a shopping experience and the lack of maintenance and the general decline of beautiful old buildings in Newark such as The Corn Exchange, the former Municipal Building and the Buttermarket.
We were inspired by the renovation and opening of Carriages Café by owner Wendy Baird a couple of years earlier, in what had formerly been the derelict 19th century Newark Castle station buildings.
A new threat was on the horizon
We approached Newark and Sherwood District Council (NSDC) for meetings with the Conservation Officer and their Economic Development Officer with a view to addressing the decline of these historic buildings. While we were busy building this campaign, we also met representatives of the Newark Civic Trust and the Newark Sports Association and in November 2018, they alerted us to a newly revealed threat.
After years of convoluted and secret negotiations going back to 2015, NSDC had granted planning permission for the land between the library and The Old Municipal Building to become a car park.
So just as we were celebrating the opening of a revived Buttermarket full of independent shops, we were suddenly faced with a much bigger and more urgent campaign.
As a campaign group, we used our individual skills, sending out press releases, our contacts and those of NCT and NSA to make FOI requests of NSDC which revealed the true scope of the plans.
The empty Municipal Building was sold along with the adjoining land to build either serviced offices or accommodation and a new car park on the Library Gardens. We immediately started a Facebook Page with the help of two local Green Party Councillors, calling the group ‘Protect Newark’s Green Spaces’ and started an online and paper petition in the depths of a freezing early January 2019.
We stood in the market square and collected signatures in the Buttermarket. We made banners and held our first public protest at the Library Garden on 16 February 2019. BBC East Midlands and ITV Central covered it.
We urged supporters to write letters to the press and to the District Council and our MP. We consulted with our two Green Party councillors on the Town Council, we talked to staff at the Library, and with officers and sympathetic Councillors at the District Council.
We increased the size of our group to include a local PR professional, Julia Smith, and many other concerned Newark residents.
Our ‘Save The Trees’ Petition was presented to NSDC in person by Julia Smith, with a large contingent of PNGS supporters in the gallery, on 7 March 2019. There were 1,770 signatures and it was, at that time, the largest petition ever presented to them.
The Full Council meeting agreed to “delay the work and revisit the scheme” and to hold a review of the parking needs in Newark, agreeing to consult the “stakeholders” in this review.
We celebrated…but in hindsight, our celebrations were too early
The rest of 2019 passed with the trees in place and with all of us and our supporters waiting for the promised ‘consultation’.
Meanwhile, we held an ‘Autumn Leaves’ awareness event in the Market Place on the steps of the Town Hall on 5 October 2019 with children’s events including leaf rubbings, speeches, poetry and music - ‘Big Yellow Taxi’ by Joni Mitchell was requested a lot! A senior representative of The Woodland Trust attended and spoke at this event.
Then, in mid-March 2020, one year after the Full Council Meeting and with still no news of the review and consultation, the UK went into Covid lockdown. Sadly, Julia Smith, who had been battling cancer for 5 years, passed away weeks later, in early April 2020.
The rest of the year was a blur of being locked down with some freedoms in the summer and the sight of the Municipal Building looking increasingly derelict. Then there was another lockdown over the Christmas and New Year period until April 2021.
Things changed quickly
At this point, we noticed that the Municipal Building was being renovated into flats. The work had started during lockdown. It became obvious that the original scheme would go ahead and that the garden would be bulldozed for the carpark extension. On making further enquiries, we found out that the promises made in March 2019 were false. The petition signed by so many was being ignored.
We immediately re-grouped and held a socially-distanced outdoor protest limited to 30 people in the Library Garden on 26 June 2021. We had music and supporters standing, socially distanced, outside the hedge holding up their banners. We made speeches and called for action and for the first time, the organisers, speakers and performers wore T-shirts and carried banners saying…
‘STOP THE CHOP’!
Our new campaign was born….
Hopefully, you know what happened next, but if not, we’ve summarised the success of our campaign here.
