No party or birthday cake this year! We delayed our AGM till the last possible date in the hope we could gather as a group. But it wasn’t to be. So we met over Zoom instead – very successfully. 44 people including our guest speaker, Ian Mitchell, MD of EnableLC who took on a new year 5-year management contract for Wandsworth greenspaces just after lockdown!! We’re all familiar by now with the increased footfall on the Common and the problems it’s brought. Fortunately Ian had more positive news too: he confirmed that recycling is on the way, drinking fountains too to help reduce single use plastic, better regulation of sports bookings and personal trainers, improvements to biodiversity and greater engagement with Friends groups (which we’ve seen already).

In our chairs’ report we highlighted the growth in members - 80 this year with the total around 475. Joint working with our sister organisation, the MAC, as well as Enable and WBC had allowed us to achieve a tremendous amount during lockdown, notably on litter and signage policies, while our outreach through walks and talks, now done virtually, has continued. A key focus in the coming year will be the 150th anniversary of the Wandsworth Common Act, which saved the Common as we know it. More of that soon. We bid farewell to two committee members but elected a new one, Gabriela Ducat, who will be working on IT and social media.

We’ve resumed small group socially-distanced bird walks. Our first, kindly led by Nick Rutter, spotted chiff chaff, blackcap and willow warblers. Finally, a few volunteers teamed up with Enable to start repairing some of the damage done to the Scope by increased footfall during lockdown – more and wider desire lines and a huge increase in den building. Both are detrimental to biodiversity due to habitat destruction so the dens have been dismantled and the wood used to create habitat for the Common’s wildlife. Fingers crossed we’ve acted in time.