An 89-Year-Old Retired Teacher Created a London Street Garden More Than 25 Years Ago, and Westminster Council Just Took Away Its Bench

More than 25 years ago, after Westminster City Council added parking spaces outside her home in St John’s Wood, Katharine Hoskyns began turning a concrete patch of pavement into a garden. Hoskyns, now 89 and a retired teacher, kept it going for a quarter of a century with the help of neighbors.

In late October, the council took away the bench at the center of it, which it says had attracted anti-social behaviour. More than 60 local residents signed a petition to save the garden, and Hoskyns says she plans to keep fighting.

How a Parking Bay Led to a Pavement Garden

According to Yahoo News UK, which carried a report from the SWNS agency, Hoskyns created the street garden in north-west London more than 25 years ago. A report republished by Head Topics from the Daily Mail adds that she has lived in the area since the 1960s, and that the council had installed parking spaces where there had been grass.

The same report says she turned a concrete area outside her home into a garden with tomatoes, geraniums and herbs. The bench was a place where neighbors could sit and talk.

Reporting summarized by Ecoticias, drawing on BBC and Westminster Extra coverage, places the garden on Hamilton Gardens, a dead-end street near Abbey Road. That account says Hoskyns started it with her sister-in-law, Catherine Hoskyns, 91, a retired university professor, and lists perennials, geraniums, tomatoes, herbs and a grapevine among the plants.

The strip of pavement leads only to the back door of her house, according to the same summary. Neighbors meet there, parents sit with children, older people use the bench and council workers take lunch breaks, it says.

The Sunday Morning the Bench Was Gone

The bench was gone when Hoskyns woke on Sunday, Oct. 25, according to the Daily Mail report on Head Topics. She had already arranged formal negotiations with the council for November.

Hoskyns told the newspaper that she paid for the bench herself and intends to contest its removal. She believes the area will get worse without seating, according to the report, and she and her family were deciding on next steps.

Yahoo News UK’s SWNS report describes her as devastated by the removal. Its headline says the bench was taken after a neighbor’s complaint, and Hoskyns has said that only one neighbor objects to the garden.

The bench was not the first target. A Harrow News London report, citing BBC London, said that in July the council ordered her to clear the bench and more than 20 plant pots from the pavement. By the report’s Sept. 3 publication, the deadline had passed but the items remained.

The Council’s Stated Reasons: Anti-Social Behaviour and Safety

Westminster Council has said the bench attracted anti-social behaviour. The Daily Mail report says the council told it that residents had complained about anti-social behaviour at night, including drug use, and that it has evidence of the problems over many years.

According to Harrow News London, the council cited years of informal complaints and described drug taking and dumped rubbish around the bench and pots. A Streamline Feed summary of the BBC and Independent coverage quotes a council statement: “Residents should be able to live without anti-social behaviour impacting on their lives.”

The Ecoticias summary adds safety reasons given in the July notice: a pot had recently fallen, objects could fall in bad weather and hurt road users or damage parked cars, and the bench’s structural safety had not been confirmed. The notice also cited the Highways Act, it says, and complaints from a “community member.”

Hoskyns disputes the behaviour claims. Harrow News London reports that she says she has never witnessed such activity and that the pots do not block the pavement. A report on News Karnataka adds that she uses a walking frame and says she can pass the pots easily.

A Petition From More Than 60 Neighbors

With help from her family, Hoskyns replied to the council and attached a petition signed by more than 60 local people, according to the Daily Mail report. Yahoo News UK’s SWNS story gives the same figure.

A later count was higher. News Karnataka reports that her son started a petition with more than 190 signatures, and that the family also wrote to the council. Streamline Feed notes that the BBC reported more than 190 signatures while MyLondon counted over 300. The Ecoticias summary says Westminster Extra reported more than 1,000 signatures in August and adds that it is unclear whether these are all the same petition.

Neighbors have spoken up as well. Holly Bell-Stevens calls the corner a “quiet oasis,” Harrow News London reports. News Karnataka quotes her as saying that without the plants it would look like another concrete corner, and says local children learned to ride bikes there.

What Comes Next: November Talks and a Question of Where the Bench Goes

The next step is the negotiation Hoskyns arranged with the council for this month. The Daily Mail report says the council first agreed she could keep the plants if the bench went, but then reportedly said she would have to gradually reduce the number of pots. The report presents that as her account, not a confirmed council position.

The council has said it has a duty to listen to residents and act accordingly, regrets the situation, and offered to return the bench to her back garden, the same report says. Hoskyns says there is no room for it there.

Ecoticias reports that the council suspended enforcement on Aug. 14, after Westminster Extra asked questions, and said it would reassess whether the plants caused problems. None of the published accounts says the council has withdrawn the notice for the pots or reached an agreement with the family.

For now, the pots remain, the bench does not, and the outcome of the November talks decides whether the garden outside Hoskyns’s home stays as it has been for more than 25 years.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: iMahesh – CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia Commons