Rammey Marsh

It was not the wilderness one might expect. There's a proper gate in, then you are guided around the whole place on a series of manicured walkways.

There are one or two quite large areas of what might almost be called lawn.

Pretty clearly this area is intended as somewhere the general public can treat as an amenity. Indeed as I walked around I saw people walking dogs, playing football, picking herbs or flowers, generally doing what people do. Not crowds, not even ten people, but some.

As you get to the Northern end of the site, about level with the roundabout (see map above) it gets a bit less artificial. The wide cultured pathways disappear. The river has trees on either side of it and runs under the motorway. There's no way to walk (that I could find) between across the river and to the other part of the Rammey Marsh site.

The Northmost part of the site is the least touched, and is clearly less used by walkers. There is no cultivated path. Apart from the loud noise of the motorway one could genuinely be in the countryside.

The North East corner of the Marsh is where the waterway runs under the M25. From that point the paths are less well defined, but still there.

Walking South, next to the waterway, the more formal path definitions resumed as I got nearer the gate to complete my circuit (you can just see the car park in the distance).

The other part of the site could not be a bigger contrast. First, there is no entrance to the site. It is fenced off, with some of the fencing having barbed wire. To get in you have to climb over a fence.

This is not altogether bad news. It means the site isn't used by the general public. The tatty old shed you see is at the South part of the site, near the roundabout.

There's bits of concrete everywhere; it almost looks like at one time the site was used for dumping. The site certainly is not a nature reserve or anything like it; it's just a tatty scrappy bit of unused land

This view is from West to East. The stand of trees is either side of the river that divides the site.

Site size The site divides into three; the scrubby part A, the interesting part B and the park-like part C. I believe that the off-roaders objections to the site size would be answered if we could gain use of that part of the marsh.

Privacy The site is currently unused and derelict. There are no houses nearby, and the site is bounded on all four sides by roads, rail or rivers. There is no vehicle access. In this regard it could not be better for us.

Location The location is awful for us; it is too far from the centre of London, turning the journey from Blackwall tunnel from ten minutes (Eastway) to the best part of an hour.

Construction The site is level; I'm assured there's no physical difficulty in building the circuit, and that for the road circuit a reasonably demanding one is perfectly possible.

If we want to try to negotiate a better deal, the thing we must avoid at all costs is to lose this opportunity altogether. If the authorities contend that it's this or nothing, and we've turned this down, we perhaps might end up with just that, nothing.