Aldershot Civic Society (ACS) has now released their report entitled "Alternative uses for the Chrismas Lodge Site" (in Evelyn Avenue), detailing, as the name implies, alternative uses for the Chrismas Lodge site rather than developing it. The report can be downloaded from this link. It makes interesting reading and hopefully will promote some duscussion on this subject, so we urge you to visit them and lodge your comments even sign the on-line petition, but please, do come back to us aterwards !, we have lots for you to see here.

We took a quick trip around the park on Saturday (20th) just to see what damage we had received from the recent gales and what we might need to do on the Sunday work party. Fortunately there was not too much damage, just a couple of small bush trees blown over and cleared up by the Council contractors. On thing we did find however, was that a resident at the top of Frog Lane on the Highfield Gardens estate, (#47 actually ), has had their rear fence replaced - 50cm to over 1M (1.5ft to 4ft) further into the park !, in fact they have moved the fence so far that one of our larger Oak trees is now in their garden, not in the park !. We are checking with the Council and their Solicitors to see if they have purchased the land, if they have we will suitably modify this news report, somehow though we doubt that we will have to do that.

You can see from the first photo (top left) that their side fence has been extended some 50cm (and over 1M in places), and then their contractor has even had the nerve to add an advertising hoarding !. The second photo shows the area over the other side of the fence, and if you look carefully at the larger version (click on the photo), you can see in the middle distance the remains of a bit of metal fencing that ended at their old boundary, and yet further on, the tree that they now have in their garden that was originally in the park !. We remember this particular tree as it is one of the ones that we fitted bird boxes to last year.

We have a watching brief to check the park and it's boundaries, and we are required to report any loss or encroachment. With the current Chrismas Lodge situation uppermost in our minds, loosing land in this way by a local resident is galling to say the least. We will just have to see how this situation pans out.

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