Forster Country is the last remaining farmland within the Borough of Stevenage, famous throughout the world for its connections to novelist E.M. Forster, who was inspired by its rolling fields and woods which he called “the loveliest place in England.”

It provides vital breathing space, physical and spiritual, for the people of Stevenage, who run, walk and ride through its rolling fields. Its meadows are home to deer, foxes, badgers, bats, buzzards and many more forms of wildlife – 400 protected species, including the Red Listed Skylark - as well as biodiverse plants and Hertfordshire woodland species like oak, hornbeam and wild cherry. Its century-old views are acclaimed by English Heritage.

Stevenage Borough Council plans to turn these heritage fields into a municipal park and has submitted plans to build a 50-car car park, toilet block, storage facility and electricity grounding station on them. It also plans to create a mound out of 25000 cubic meters of landfill on one meadow, and build 2.5 kilometres of 3.5-metre-wide roads around and through the fields, and to place speed humps, bollards, litter bins and seating around the site. 

This overly designed urban park was planned with no public consultation by the Council and then conveyed as instructions to developers in a series of private meetings in late 2021 and early 2022. The Council’s proposals do not respect heritage recommendations or environmental and biodiversity advice. They do not respect best practice on disability access and inclusion. They run in direct contravention of the council’s own plan to hit net zero targets on carbon emissions by 2030.

Please sign this petition to ask Stevenage Borough Council to withdraw its plan for a municipal park on these heritage meadows and consult the public, environmental and heritage experts in the restoration and preservation of the meadows that were promised as part of a council-approved housing redevelopment on another part of this site.

Forster’s book Howards End, based on his childhood home in Stevenage, includes the call to appreciate Nature: “What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?” This petition, on behalf of the Friends of Forster Country, urges everyone to help preserve this vital green space by asking Stevenage Borough Council to think again.

Any petition that gets over 1,000 signatures forces the matter to be discussed at a full Council meeting. Stevenage Borough Council claims to be a “co-operative” council, working on the principles of co-operation, deep public involvement and co-production of community spaces. This is their opportunity to prove it.

This petition relates to Stevenage Borough Council’s Executive policy decisions and vision for the much-loved heritage meadows known as Forster Country. This petition does not concern any existing planning application.