Rosanna Thompson :[email protected]/ [email protected]
The Problem with Nunhead Reservoir; Trespassing on a Heterotopic Space of Resistance A London Waterworks as the Site of Multiple Struggles for the Commons
And the human being is likewise the bordering creature who has no border. - George Simmel1
Four miles south-east of the centre of London you will find Nunhead- a quiet suburb in the borough of Southwark. Take a walk down Brockley Footpath. On the east is Nunhead Cemetery, the west some land obscured by trees and a metal fence. Halfway down the footpath step through a narrow gap in this fence and scramble up a slope. The land opens out to reveal thirty acres of green, flat open space.2You’ve reached one of the highest points in South London and can see for miles in every direction.3 People are sitting on the grass together, playing guitar, drinking, watching the sunset. You are standing on an underground reservoir4 owned by Thames Water, and you are illegally trespassing.
Nunhead Reservoir was built by the Southwark and Vauxhall Water Company in 1855 and is now owned and run by Thames Water PLC. 5It is ‘live service’, which means it is currently supplying water to thousands of properties in London. Despite access being prohibited people have been going to spend time there, almost as if it were a public park, for many years. Until recently this has carried on without much comment, Thames Water occasionally patching up holes in the fence and seemingly turning a blind eye to the fact that more will be made as quickly as they can repair them. In December 2014 a larger fence was erected6 inside the parameters of the original. It affects the view, having been described as ‘something out of Area 51 or a high-security prison.’(Peckham Peculiar, 2015) Thames Water claim health and safety reasons for installing the new fence, which was nevertheless since been cut through by people continuing to use the space.7This cycle of breaking and repairing continued until Thames Water dramatically increased security sometime in May/June 2015, installing guard dogs and a security guard. The new fence has caused a renewed interest in the reservoir from local people and newspapers, some of whom are concerned by the increased securitization over what by now is perceived as common space. Whatever the reasons for the new fence, there was no dialogue between Thames Water and the people who use the site- the only new signs put up were to deter people by letting them know about the guard dogs patrolling.
1 (1997, p.63) 2 See fig 1 3 See fig 2 4 See fig 2.a 5 Thames Water website- ‘Our History’ 6 See fig.3 and 4 7 See fig.
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Spaces such as this one– where the original use has been appropriated or subverted- have been described by theorists as ‘loose spaces’ (Franck and Stevens), or ‘informal space’ (Shaw and Hudson, 2009). One can understand the site using Foucault’s concept of the Heterotopia, which denotes a space which is ‘other’ to normal or everyday spaces, and which takes on multiple, disjointed or contradictory meanings. These are places that ‘interrupt the apparent continuity and normality of ordinary everyday space’ and ‘inject alterity into the sameness, the commonplace, the topicality of everyday society. (…) ‘hetero-topias’ – literally ‘other places’.’ (Dehaene and De Cauter, 2008, pp.3,4) Especially relevant to Nunhead Reservoir is the third principle of the heterotopia: ‘The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible.’ (Foucault, 1997, p.334) Dehaene and De Cauter describe heterotopias as ‘aporetic spaces that reveal or represent something about the society in which they reside through the way in which they incorporate and stage the very contradictions this society produces but is unable to resolve.’ (2008) Whilst the key problem is the recent withdrawal of any access to Nunhead Reservoir, I will be using Foucault’s six principles of the heterotopia as a framework to discuss how this one space conceptualises ‘multiple incompatible sites’ and ‘contradictions’ unresolvable in society. For example: it is a place of leisure but also a functional part of infrastructure, its status is private and owned yet it was ‘illegally’ accessed and appropriated by the public, and it is a site in which water makes millions for private shareholders, even though many see water as a collectively owned commons.
First I will discuss how the reservoir is/was used and perceived by those who go there. I will then move on to how the increased security around the site represents the wider problems of increased security over public and private space in London. In the second section I will discuss two related struggles over public space in South East London. One historic, the struggle over One Tree Hill 120 years ago, and one currently being fought, over the demolition of the Aylesbury Estate. These two struggles bring out many interesting features of the struggle over Nunhead Reservoir, and root the site to its geographical and historical context. The third section will focus on the resource being processed under the ground, water. I discuss the significance of the fact that Thames Water, as a private company, are making vast profits from a resource many see not just as a common, but as a symbol of the commons. In the fourth I have outlaid some solutions to the problem, regarding ways to gain public access to the site. I have found information about the reservoir through spending time there and speaking to many local people, as well as virtual ethnography research to get a broader range of opinions on its use and perception.
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I will now go into more detail about how the site was used and perceived by those who go there to outline what is being fought over. I assumed it to be somewhat secret, but soon realised that many people know about it or have been there. Whenever I have visited there have always been others there. Its internet presence goes some way to illustrate how well known it is, with its own foursquare page8, facebook location,9 countless blogposts, forum discussions and photos. There are hundreds of mentions on twitter10 and instagram. 11From conducting a virtual ethnography on the reservoir as well as spending time there, I have listed the various ways people use it. The view in particular is the reason people are drawn to spend time there. The activities I noted include but are not limited to:
Small or large groups of people socialising Enjoying the view (esp. sunset, fireworks night)
Running Fitness classes
Yoga Silent disco
Graffiti Drinking alcohol
Playing guitar and other instruments Picnic and Barbequing
Taking drugs Dog walking
Painting and sketching Sunbathing
Photography Outdoor sex
Experimenting with setting things on fire Skateboarding
Sledging when there’s been snowfall Making videos
Rounders and Cricket Watching the football on a screen brought to the site(?) e.t.c
Here’s an example of how people have raised the issue of its potential -in one report by two local groups ‘Southwark Cyclists’ and ‘Southwark Living Streets’ (Open Space Strategy, 2012) it was suggested regarding Nunhead and Honor Oak reservoirs that, ‘Given the space that they [the reservoir tops] take up and the opportunity they represent (…) some access to them would be extremely
8 See fig.6 9 See fig.7 10 See https://twitter.com/search?q=nunhead%20reservoir&src=sprv 11 The internet is blamed by many as being the reason for the loss of the reservoir- if it hadn’t been publicised so frequently online not so many people would have visited it, which would mean Thames Water (possibly) wouldn’t have felt the need to close it off for good.
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welcome.’ This comment in an official report (as opposed to casual comments online, of which there are many) demonstrates how there has been a desire to officially sanction the use of the reservoir, although, as I will go on to explain, the ‘secret’ status it holds is to many, a large part of its allure.
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The increased security around the reservoir is indicative of a trend towards increased securitization of the city, brought about by an increase in ‘private/public’ spaces in London. Anna Minton argues that ‘the privatisation of the public realm, through the growth of ‘private-public’ space, produces over- controlled, sterile places which lack connection to the reality and diversity of the local environment, with the result that they all tend to look the same.’ (2006 p.3). In London we can see examples of this in gated communities (e.g. New Caledonian Wharf and Bow Quarter) shopping centres (the two Westfield centres) and privately owned squares and streets (e.g. Canary Wharf, Granary Square, Paternoster Square). As Franck and Stevens write in Loose Space, ‘City officials and property investors have vested interests in a homogeneous, predictable and well-ordered environment where use and appearance are controlled. The unregulated movements and actions of people, the ill-defined boundaries […] become reasons for tightening up space.’ (2007, p.22)
The reservoir is an example of a space which until its recent increased securitization has been paradoxically liminal in terms of its private/ public status. It’s been used as if it were public, and yet its private status has allowed it to be outside of state control- free from the ‘city officials’ who might also try to control it. Wide open space in this way is always in demand, and yet it being above a reservoir it is at least protected from being bought and developed on as expensive flats. Because of these two powers- the state and the market (in the form of Thames Water) turning a blind eye, many different activities have been allowed to happen at the site, as listed above. The fact these activities are both legal and illegal/perceived as anti-social is indicative of its status as an informal space- there was little police presence (unless they are specifically called there) and no surveillance. These ‘deviant activities’ (eg. Drinking, graffiti etc) mean we could see the reservoir as an example of a heterotopia of deviance as mentioned in the first principle of the heterotopia. ‘Heterotopias of deviance, occupied by individuals whose behaviour deviates from the current average or standard.’(1997,p.333) Franck and Stevens recommend that the tightening up of space should only be necessary when real dangers become apparent.
Loose space, with its relaxation of constraints, does provide a haven for many activities that are legally defined as crimes. Some—dumping toxic waste, assault—pose threats for everyone, wherever they occur, and it may be necessary to tighten space to reduce these
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dangers. Other activities, however, such as ball playing, loitering or drinking alcohol, are unpleasant rather than dangerous. They pose relatively little harm to other people and are tolerated in some locations but not in others. In response to fears about these kinds of risks, the potentials of space and action are often inordinately tightened. This tightening often merely displaces risky activities somewhere else and, at the same time, unnecessarily restricts the opportunity for a great many legal and desirable activities. (p.22)
As an example of two ‘unpleasant rather than dangerous’ activities being noticed is that in one forum commenters suggested that noise and rubbish were becoming problems and could have been two of the factors leading to the new fence. Thames Water are also able to cite ‘significant threats’ when they claimed in their response to my request for information that access to the public is prohibited because ‘[…] it's a live service reservoir which supplies thousands of properties in London, we would be breaching the Public Health Act and causing a risk of contamination.’ 12Evidently, people do not take seriously these claims, as expressed here in the East Dulwich Forum where one person wrote: ‘The [close by] Honor Oak Reservoir has a golf course on it so presumably any terrorist intent on blowing up / poisoning our water just has to start playing golf?’ Another continued, ‘The reservoir is perfectly securely underground, and there are plenty of open air reservoirs where people are allowed to use the banks.’(East Dulwich Forum, 2015) As the new fence was being built in January- March a local newspaper ‘Peckham Peculiar’ wrote a short piece in which a local said, ‘It’s one of the best viewpoints in south London. I understand that unregulated access is a worry for Thames Water, but any argument that closing it off is for health and safety reasons is completely spurious if it’s OK to have a golf club over the other reservoir just to the south.” (2015). The Aquarius golf club on Honor Oak reservoir is, as shown from these comments, used as a reason to refute Thames Water’s claims that it is unsafe to allow access to Nunhead reservoir.
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The fact that access to the open space of Honor Oak reservoir is allowed to be used as a golf club (rather than for example, a school playing field, as some forum commenters have suggested for Nunhead Reservoir) is ironic in three ways. Firstly, because golf is commonly seen as an elitist sport which is only played by the wealthy, and so access to the land is restricted unless you can afford golf club membership. Secondly, it is on a reservoir, and golf courses use up vast amounts of water to maintain, often in places where water is scarce. (Barcelona Field Studies Centre, 2015) Thirdly, and
12 See fig.8
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most interestingly, it is ironic when put into historical context concerning the struggle over One Tree Hill in Honor Oak13, just one mile away from Nunhead Reservoir, which was enclosed by a golf club some 120 years ago.
This was in the midst of the enclosures acts, however at this late stage the nature of the struggle over the commons began to change. ‘The resistance to enclosures and development from commoners with traditional rights or interest in commons for economic reasons, gradually transformed into struggles for open space for recreation.’ (Down With the Fences, 2004 p.7) In 1905 John Nisbet wrote an account of the struggle over Honor Oak Hill (which was then and is now more commonly known as One Tree Hill): ‘Honor Oak Hill, up to the autumn of 1896, when it was quietly but effectually enclosed by a golf club, had been always an open space, and from time immemorial a popular place of resort for the people. The barring of the public from this hitherto much frequented spot, by the erection of a six foot fence, caused a storm of indignation.’ (Nisbet, J., 1905, p.15) A protest committee was set up, which reached 150 people and had 40 meetings (!). They set out to prove that the site was well used by the public and gather support. This effort being rather slow, a ‘spirit of unrest […] began to show itself amongst a small section of the members.’ (p.17) After many months of deliberation with the various authorities, the people decided to go against the committee and stage a direct action. On October 10th 1896 a crowd of 15,000 people rushed the fence breaking part of it and entered the enclosed One Tree Hill. This was controlled by police, but on the following Sunday, an estimated 50,000- 100,000 people returned to do the same again. Over the next few years, though the riots never revived, the process continued, and after much pressure the London County Council made a compulsory purchase order– buying back the hill for public use in 1904. It remains a public park to this day. Could the struggle over Nunhead Reservoir go down the same route? Is this struggle as yet in the first stage: of indignation and small acts of trespassing and fence breaking?
Another struggle is being fought at the time of writing against the sell-off of the social housing known as the Aylesbury Estate, in Walworth, roughly three miles away from Nunhead Reservoir. The estate is being demolished and its replacement is a new development; the council’s alternative to spending 350 million pounds on maintaining the estate to basic living standards. 50% of the new housing is planned to be ‘affordable’ (Southwark.gov 2015) and this term is by now generally understood to mean ‘slightly less expensive’ rather than in the price range of former residents of the estate. Feelings are running high, as this line from a Southwark Notes article (2015) captures; ‘Southwark has been displacing the Aylesbury residents out of their immediate area and subjecting leaseholders, many of them elderly people who’ve lived in the area their whole lives, to unnecessarily brutal Compulsory Purchase Orders.’ A campaign was launched by residents and anti-gentrification protesters, a small group of whom occupied one of the flats scheduled to be pulled down. This and other perceived
13 See fig.9 for a map
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security threats prompted Southwark Council to erect an 8 ft high fence 14around four blocks of the estate, thus restricting access to the 30 remaining residents and their allowed guests, whom they have to walk more than half a mile to meet at the gate. The fence allegedly cost 140k to erect and thousands every week to pay security guards who patrol it. (Southwark News 2015) Whilst the estate used to be public and therefore anyone could walk through it as a right of way, the fence now obstructs the free entry through the blocks. Just like at One Tree Hill, on 2nd April protests culminated in the tearing down of part of the fence. 15 The occupation’s blog states, ‘Along with hundreds of others from the neighbourhood, we took direct action against the fences. On the evening of 2nd April, we brought down the fences in three places, spread out around the perimeter. No machinery was involved – it was pure people power.’ (Fight for the Aylesbury, 2015) The fence around the Aylesbury has since been repaired but its future existence is being reviewed by the council after the attention drawn to it. Fences are both practical in that they do manage to keep people out physically, as well as symbolic in that even if people manage to traverse them they symbolise the divide between space we are legally allowed to occupy and space we are barred from. The fence symbolises the estate’s handover from public to private space, giving a clear message to residents still inside and people outside of it, that they are no longer welcome.
Nunhead reservoir’s original fence with its broken panel maintained the reservoir’s allure of going to a ‘secret place’. We can understand this sense of ritual and mystery of entering and exiting the site by considering its heterotopic nature, especially with regards to the sixth principle of the heterotopia, ‘Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that isolates them and makes them penetrable at one and the same time. Usually, one does not get into a heterotopian location by one’s own will. Either one is forced, as in the case of the barracks or the prison, or one must submit to rites of purification. One can only enter by special permission and after one has completed a certain number of gestures.’ (Foucault, 1997, p.335) The fact that whilst one could enter the reservoir even though it was officially closed demonstrates the first sentence in this passage, it seemed isolated, yet could be penetrated. The ‘system of opening and closing’ comprised of firstly, the ‘special permission’ of finding out that the reservoir existed and was ‘penetrable’, like being indoctrinated into a special club. Secondly it is the navigation of transporting your body through the broken fence. This is not just a physical task, as the fence’s existence means the more cautious of us will have to mentally ‘psych themselves up’ for doing something they know is illegal. (Am I going to get caught? Will we meet some dangerous people? e.t.c) The new fence makes this mental and physical task of entering and exiting all the more difficult and unappealing. Now that people are unable to traverse this boundary into the heterotopic space, can we still call it a heterotopic space?
14 See fig 10 and 11 15 See fig. 12
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I will now discuss the function of the site as a reservoir and the problem this presents. Here is an extract from the second heterotopian principle:
‘Over the course of its history, a society may take an existing heterotopia, which has never vanished, and make it function in a very different way. Actually, each heterotopia has a precise and well-defined function within society and the same heterotopia can, in accordance with the synchroneity of the culture in which it is located, have a different function.’ (p.333)
If the well-defined function is the site’s use as a reservoir then the ‘different’ function is the way society has appropriated it as a public space. If the two different functions of the reservoir can become compatible, and for this to happen there would have to be a cultural and legal shift in the way we approach private and public space, as well as the way we view water. Water has been described by commons activists David Boiller (2011) and Tommaso Fattori (2011) as not just a commons, but a symbol of the commons, it being a resource that occurs naturally and is a necessity to human survival. However, in recent years it has been termed not as a common but as a commodity. Maude Barlow comments on this shift.
At the launch of Australia’s PL100 World Water Trust in May 2007, its CEO declared, “ The water industry resembles the oil industry during its golden era.” This sudden and intense interest in water as a commodity- something to be used for private profit and personal gain- is a direct contradiction to the notion of water as a Commons, with its emphasis on collective access and shared responsibility. It is far from clear which definition will prevail. (2008, pp.6,7)
Amidst the looming water shortage crisis, (McKie, 2015) private companies are still making vast profits from this resource. One article claimed that Thames Water made 259m profit in the year 2013- 2015, and still did not pay any corporation tax. (Goodwin, 2014) They also contribute to the creation of these shortages, by taking water to be bottled away from people living close to the well, as argued by Kevin Sampson writing on Nestle’s part in this. (2015). Thames Water is one of ten UK regional water and sewerage companies to take ownership of the waterworks when water was fully privatised in 1989. Along with water, the Conservative government from 1979 to 1997 oversaw the privatisation of many utilities and services such as electricity, gas, the railways and buses. In line with neoliberal New Public Management terminology, Thames Water’s website refers to water as their ‘product’ and its recipients their ‘customers’. (Thames Water, 2015)
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One adjacent ‘problem’ with London - illuminated by the site of Nunhead Reservoir- is that not only have our water commons been trusted to private companies, but we have become alienated from the source of this water, and thus do not treat it as if it is scarce or even precious. Henry Dicks proposes a system called ‘demand attunement’ to solve this alienation, which he defines as ‘the attunement of demand to what appropriate technologies—technologies that cooperate with nature- can supply.’ (2014, p.428) He claims that when water is held in reserve and away from its natural source, we lose the understanding that it is in short supply. ‘For only when water takes on the status of an abstraction does it becomes habitual for consumers to make the ‘unreasonable demand’ that it be stored on hand such that it can be made available whenever, wherever, and in whatever quantity they demand.’ (p.429) Referring to ancient Rome, where aqueducts were named according to where the water originated from, Dicks writes, ‘in naming their aqueducts after the rivers whose water they bore, the ancient Romans also ‘let appear’ these natural water flows.’(p.425) This removes the abstraction and helps form a sense of place. ‘Using water from a local well or a rainwater storage pool would establish a direct connection to place, thus affirming continuity between the waters in question and their human use.’(p.425) Whilst sceptics and the people who gain from its privatisation will claim that this approach to water is impractical, in the coming years of environmental crisis it may be we have no choice but to implement it. As a step in the right direction, renationalising the waterworks would at least possibly lessen the public’s alienation from water and its sources.
Visually, because the water is out of sight underground, Nunhead Reservoir could be seen a metaphor for the way we as a society handle the threats of water shortages and other environmental concerns. We know it is there but we act as if we don’t know. Zizek, (The Examined Life 2008) describes the psychological process at work when thinking about impending environmental catastrophes, as ‘disavowal’; ‘I know very well there may be global warming, everything will explode, be destroyed. But after reading a treatise on it, what do I do? I step out. I see- not things that I see now behind me- that’s a nice sight for me- I see nice trees, birds singing and so on. And even if I know rationally this is all in danger, I simply do not believe that this can be destroyed.’ (2008
If done in the right manner, the ‘demand attunment’ way of supplying water would hopefully go some way towards removing this ‘disavowel’ mental block which Zizek speaks of, as well as addressing the vast inequities inherent in the perception and management of water as a commodity rather than a common. Trespassing on land owned by Thames Water, stepping directly over the underground reservoir, whether knowingly or not, can be a protest against the privatisation and commodification of water, and an affirmation of our collective ownership of it as a commons.
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Whilst I have discussed many problems which Nunhead Reservoir represents microcosmically, the particular problem I wish to propose solutions to is the restriction of access to the site.
Seeing as a golf course is granted access to Honor Oak reservoir, as I have previously mentioned, Thames Water might be persuaded to allow access to the public if there was an agreement as to how the site would be managed. One possibility could be a committee (a la One Tree Hill Protest Committee) which could organise how the site is used. It could be called, ‘Friends of Nunhead Reservoir’ and would look after the site, with a steering group for different organisations who use the site. For example, as suggested in one comment written in the East Dulwich forum (2015), the nearby Ivydale School could use it as a playing field. They would have a representative on the steering group in order to collectively manage the upkeep and timetabling. Friends of Southwark park for example are recognised by the London Borough of Southwark, their ‘primary role is to liaise with, and encourage the Council to look after the parks in the interests of the people who use them.’ (Friends of Southwark Park)
Like the One Tree Hill protests 120 years ago and the Aylesbury estate protests this year, people are unwilling to wait for a committee to liberate a space they feel they have a right to, and will continue to break down the fence and use the land over Nunhead Reservoir. However, it may be that a combination of this direct action, coinciding with a coherent effort to communicate the demands of the committee, could be enough to sway Thames Water, who by now must understand that no effort to permanently restrict access to the site could be properly enforced.
There is a sense that whilst there are some that leave rubbish, there are also many who love the place and want to take care of it. Loals would regularly go up there with rubbish bags and come down with them filled. See Fig.13 for one of these locals’ homemade ‘Public Service Announcement’ asking people to tidy up. In contrast to this, a Thames Water ‘Keep Out’ sign which has been covered with graffiti and stickers16 is an apt metaphor for how people respond to Thames Water’s keeping people out. I have a suspicion that the prohibition of access is a factor in the amount of rubbish people leave, as a place being private and out of bounds engenders a paradoxical contempt however much you love it. Opening the site to the public and having bins and benches wouldn’t just mean people have a place to put their rubbish, but might also lessen the destructive habits people tend to exhibit when in a place they think that no-one cares about. (Or that it doesn’t matter if they leave rubbish because someone from Thames Water will clean it up).
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16 See Fig.14
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Some comments to conclude. If we did ever manage to get public access, it would still be under more control than before the new fence, meaning it may be that one particular function of the Nunhead Reservoir- as a heterotopia of deviance- is no longer applicable. The activities I mentioned which might happen in a heterotopia of deviance, and are often seen as anti-social (such as graffiti, burning things, taking drugs, teenagers socialising in large groups, etc.) were in part only able to happen at the reservoir because there was enough fencing for the authorities to assume they didn’t need to police it, but not enough to stop the site being used. Unlike the countryside, in Greater London there isn’t the space in which to do these things out of sight. Now that Thames Water are serious about securing the site, it is a choice between nobody being able to use it, or the public being able to use it albeit in a more controlled and managed way. It seems a loss because of the inevitable curtailment of the variation of activities, but it does mean people are able to enjoy the space.
Foucault writes of heterotopias that they ‘perform the task of creating a space of illusion.’ (335) One could say that the site of Nunhead Reservoir, with the land’s strange angular slopes (on account of the grass being laid above concrete), and its position, hidden within suburban streets, somewhat secret and yet simultaneously well-known, is somewhat illusory, and even dreamlike, its barren sparseness perfect conditions for freedom of the imagination. This ‘space of illusion’, Foucault continues, ‘reveals how all of real space is more illusory, all the locations within which life is fragmented.’ (335) The way in which I have shown the site to represent the divisions between public and private space, shows these divisions to be illusory in themselves, always man-made, and constantly in flux. Fences for example, are shown to be often expensive and intimidating, but ultimately symbolic and easy to pull down. Similarly illusory, water is the original purpose of the reservoir’s existence, and yet we cannot see it because held underground, thus showing the ‘illusion’ we are under as a society about how our environments enables us to survive. However, on the other hand, as Foucault’s next line states, heterotopias ‘have the function of forming another space, another real space, as perfect, meticulous and well-arranged as ours is disordered, ill-conceived and in a sketchy state.’(335) This is also true of the reservoir. It is very much real, and is perfectly ‘well-arranged’ and ‘meticulous’ in its angular slopes and highest-hill-top position overlooking all of London, is if proclaiming its superiority to ‘ill-conceived and sketchy’ sprawling suburbs and disordered skyline below it.
Aside from the original ‘problem’ of the loss of access to Nunhead Reservoir, I have shown how the concept of the heterotopia can be used to frame the site as a microcosm of the other wider problems within London. Solving this problem, or at least drawing attention to its symbolic nature, could see Nunhead Reservoir becoming a legendary tale of hope for London’s common spaces.
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Words: 5,488
Fig. 1.
View over London skyline from top level of land over the reservoir.
Fig. 2
View over London looking North
Fig. 2a. Nunhead Reservoir seen from above
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Fig. 3 and 4
New fence
Fig 5
Someone has cut through the razor wire on top and provided footing for either side of the metal fence
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Fig. 6
Four Square Page
Fig. 7.
Facebook Location
Fig. 8
Email response from Thames Water 14
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Fig 9.
One Tree Hill
Fig. 10 and 11.
Aylesbury Fence
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Fig. 2
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Fig.12
Fig. 13
Fig.14
Keep out sign, appropriated
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Works Cited
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[Internet Newspaper] Available from:
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Shaw, P. and Hudson, J. (2009) The Qualities of Informal Space: (Re)appropriation within the informal, interstitial spaces of the city. [Internet] Available from:
Simmel, G. (1997) Bridge and Door, In Leach, N., ed. Rethinking Architecture: A reader in cultural theory. London: Routledge.
Southwark Living Streets & Southwark Cyclists (2012) Open Spaces Strategy Consultation. [Internet] Available from:
Thames Water, (2012), Our History, [Internet] Available from: < http://www.thameswater.co.uk/about-us/850.htm> [Accessed 3/15] Thames Water, (2015), Promoting Our Product, [Internet] Available from:
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Rosanna Thompson :[email protected]/ [email protected]
List of Images and their Sources
Fig 1and 2.- Worthington, A., (2012) Top of the World, Photograph [Internet Image]. Available from < https://www.flickr.com/photos/andyworthington/8285404398/in/set-72157632280359880/> [Accessed 3/15]
Fig 2a- Google maps, (2015) Nunhead Reservoir, Available through < https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Nunhead+Reservoir,+London+SE15/@51.4607795,- 0.0541909,381m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m2!3m1!1s0x487603b1c6f0abaf:0x6cb8c3aef962e5b6> Accessed 3/15]
Fig 3 and 4- Soper, M., (2015) Mesh reinforcements and razor wire. Reservoir days are over. Photograph [Internet Image] Available at < https://twitter.com/mgsoper/status/560753039758213120> [Accessed 3/15]
Fig. 5- Soper, M., (2015) Where there’s a Will There’s a Way In, Photograph [Internet Image]. Available from < https://instagram.com/p/zp1Ci7MBu3/> [Accessed 3/15]
Fig 6- Screenshot taken by author, (2015) Foursquare, Available at < https://foursquare.com/v/nunhead- reservoir/4f6f668ce4b032eb64d68fb3?openPhotoId=5187c703498e0df552e3c233> [Available 3/15]
Fig 7- Screenshot taken by author, (2015) Facebook, Available at < https://www.facebook.com/pages/Nunhead-Reservoir/294378650655030> [Accessed 3/15]
Fig 8- Screenshot taken by author, (2015) Gmail
Fig 9- Google Maps, (2015) One Tree Hill, Available through < https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/One+Tree+Hill,+London+SE23/@51.451284,- 0.0514644,16z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m2!3m1!1s0x487603ca1277a23b:0xf6eb573a2f9390d5> [Accessed 4/15]
Fig.10 and 11- Unknown author (2015) Photograph [Internet Image] Available from < https://southwarknotes.wordpress.com/2015/03/17/southwark-councils-siege-mentality-fencing-in- aylebury-estate-residents/> [Accessed 3/15]
Fig 12- Unknown author (2015) Photograph [Internet Image] Available from
Fig. 13- Soper, M., (2014) A little public service announcement for visitors to these parts. Photograph, Edited with Text [Internet Image] Available from
Fig. 14- Author’s own, (2015) Keep Out Sign, Appropriated, Photograph
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