Mourning the loss of a green space - Anil Netto

In an incomprehensible move, the public green space in front of the Dewan Sri Pinang has been fenced up.

I had blogged about this before here but today, I found the following message from a concerned Penang resident in my mailbox:

This little green lung has a history. It was designed in the early 1990s and planting was carried out just before the visit of the then Agong. It was meant to be a very green, friendly space for use by visitors, the inner city residents and office workers. It had lots of grass in little undulating mounds and criss-crossing pathways, which had already been etched into the earth from use by folks walking from the Esplanade to the Courthouse and to Green Hall.

The centre had two wonderful rows of very mature palm trees transplanted at great expense from another council site. The trees at the edges were kept in order to provide shade. It was inviting and non-intimidating and used by all.

Concrete over a green space: The fencing going up last year – File pic by Anil

Now it’s been completely fenced up and is inaccessible. The fencing is overly elaborate, obviously very costly and totally out of context. The centre has been totally concreted and tiled so it’s hot and non-useable. It has a really ugly, useless fountain. The front of Dewan Sri – a classical early post-war modernist building – has had its entire frontage and symmetry destroyed by a very large, obtrusive and inappropriate yellow perspex awning.

Most importantly, the inner city of George Town, already short of green spaces for use, has had one more removed totally unnecessarily. At no point in time can the fencing off of public spaces, for no reason whatsoever, be justified. In this case we were told the fencing was ‘to protect the decorative planting’. We should demand to know why public funds were used for decorative planting and then more public funds were then used to protect that planting.

This seems to confirm my theory that certain people have this uncontrollable urge to dump concrete or put up a concrete structure wherever they see any public green space.

The state government is due to meet reps from civil society groups tomorrow to discuss the setting up of a Speaker’s Corner at the Esplanade after they complained about the loss of the green space at Dewan Sri.

It should seriously consider re-opening this green (what’s left of the green, that is) space for public use.