Trustee Spotlight - Giles Charlton
Our Trustee, Giles Charlton, is the director of local landscape architect firm Spacehub, and someone we have collaborated with on a few projects over the years. He first stumbled across us around a decade ago, when he was involved in the Bishopsgate Goods Yard first planning application and getting to know local community spaces as part of that initial project research. He tells us that he immediately felt a natural energy here, and an immediate sense of the importance of keeping a space like this alive.
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You can be very close to the Farm and not know it’s right there. It's incredible. This area has undergone some huge change over the last decade, good and bad, and being a local business we've got such a more involved in quite a number of developments in the area, and a lot of it is in quite close proximity to the farm. Over the years I got to know Phil, and I guess we enjoyed each other's company, and I really got to see how much the farm is providing for the local community. It is gold dust really, and very precious. With everything going on all around it, it just makes you kind of more and more aware of how special it is.
The pressure on land in London is enormous, and it is increasing, so there's less and less diversity of land use in urban centres. Furniture makers, light industry, photography centres, artist studios; a whole plethora of other historically London-based suppliers and manufacturers have moved out en masse – and what you’re left with is this loss of diversification. Over the past 2 decades, London has lost a staggering quarter of its light industrial floorspace, primarily driven by high-value conversions to residential housing. It is a similar story with artist studio space. This Farm, being located as we are and in that context, is an oasis; a hidden gem.
Although I've been a trustee for a little while, there's still more I don't know than what I do know. Most of the time when I come here, I'm in meetings or doing something quite specific, so it's taking a while to understand the Farm, and get to know the team and what everyone's doing. When I was first invited to be a trustee I was a bit daunted by the responsibility, as I had not been a trustee before. But I was starting to take a back seat in my business, and it was on that basis that I thought I could take it on and be able to put in the time. It’s only because I’m pretty much retired that I'm able to do this, and I absolutely love it. I enjoy the time and effort immensely. I hope that having someone on the board who understands land – local land particularly – and the local authority is helpful to the farm in its various initiatives.
What is special about this Farm is its rarity, especially when you think of how few city farms there are left now, which is only 12. We're lucky to have something here, and once a community asset is gone, it’s gone.
In the eighties we used to cycle up to the Victoria Park Lido from the workshop in the summer and just have a splash, but when I turned up there in the summer of 1990, it wasn't there anymore. It had been demolished and replaced with a car park. It would be hugely popular now, but the lesson is once it's gone, it’s gone. We must continue protecting the farm and its future. It is extremely special.
