{"id":227,"date":"2005-07-06T15:52:53","date_gmt":"2005-07-06T15:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/?p=227"},"modified":"2005-07-06T15:52:53","modified_gmt":"2005-07-06T15:52:53","slug":"well-there-goes-the-neighbourhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/?p=227","title":{"rendered":"Well, there goes the neighbourhood"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"375\" alt=\"Leavalley2005\" src=\"http:\/\/london.metblogs.com\/leavalley2005.jpg\" width=\"281\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">Local cyclists enjoying the&nbsp;Lea Valley in June&nbsp;2005<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"280\" alt=\"Leavalley2012\" src=\"http:\/\/london.metblogs.com\/leavalley2012.jpg\" width=\"214\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n<p><!--StartFragment --><\/p>\n<p align=\"center\">The same view of the&nbsp;Lea Valley in&nbsp;2012<\/p>\n<p>Whilst the politicians and the business people and the sports people are all head over heels, I and a good many others are not so happy with <a href=\"http:\/\/news.bbc.co.uk\/sport1\/hi\/front_page\/4655555.stm\">today&rsquo;s news<\/a>.&nbsp; I was born at&nbsp;one end of the Lea Valley and have lived at the other for most of&nbsp;my life.&nbsp; I have cycled up and down it many a time and&nbsp;enjoyed many happy times taking in the&nbsp;flora and&nbsp;fauna, not to mention&nbsp;the&nbsp;peace and quiet the valley has to offer local city-dwellers and visitors alike.&nbsp; I am&nbsp;sad that riverine landscapes and marshland habitats are to be lost.&nbsp; I am sad that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.londoncyclesport.com\/eastway_book\/index.html\">well-used <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.londontown.com\/LondonInformation\/Recreation\/Lee_Valley_Cycle_Centre\/3703\/\">existing <\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.singletrackworld.com\/article.php?sid=1221\">grassroots<\/a> open-to-all facilities&nbsp;will disappear&nbsp;in order to make way for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.london2012.org\/en\">open&ndash;only-to-some &lsquo;centres of excellence&rsquo;<\/a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;I suspect that compulsory land purchases and aggressive building schedules will mean that we have but a few short weeks in which to enjoy the Lower Lea Valley before public access is withdrawn and lost forever.<\/p>\n<p>The London 2012 web site is showing &lsquo;unavailable&rsquo; at the time of posting.&nbsp; The irony of the that statement is sadly pertinent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Local cyclists enjoying the&nbsp;Lea Valley in June&nbsp;2005 The same view of the&nbsp;Lea Valley in&nbsp;2012 Whilst the politicians and the business people and the sports people are all head over heels, I and a good many others are not so happy with today&rsquo;s news.&nbsp; I was born at&nbsp;one end of the Lea Valley and have lived [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bignoseduglyguy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}