New space for old space: An urban vision

The three local farmers’ markets situated at the CPUL edge start selling fresh food, being busier today than during weekdays, when only two of them are open at any one time. (London-wide, there are now about 150 farmers’ markets.) Ice cream and fresh fruit juice vendors are setting up their stalls around the main CPUL routes. The cafés and restaurants bordering the CPUL put their chairs and tables out, the smell of coffee and fresh bread blows over the fields. Tennis players exchange first balls on the nearby tennis court. Close to it, the bowls and boules groups are getting together.The various canopied outside offices, situated in the quieter areas of the CPUL, are less busy today. With their fixed-seating laptop plug-ins or their workbenches, they are now used by kids playing computer games or making aeroplane models. (During weekdays, children use computer playgrounds or youth workshops, often located closely to CPULs so as to allow safe access and the use of outside space.) Most of the commercial farmers celebrate the weekend and the low gates to their fields are now shut, but instead other fields are busy with allotment growers and communal farm projects. There are numerous allotments within this CPUL, but they do not threaten to take over the larger, more generous urban agricultural fields: the number of allotments in London quickly stabilised, once everybody wanting to grow their own food was supplied with one. Often, the produce from the land is sold straight off the fields via one of the various small kiosks that are situated within the CPUL allowing farmers to weigh, price and record produce appropriately. For the past 20 years, since about 2025, air pollution has no longer been an issue and ground contamination is being cleared through systematic soil treatment and continuous planting. The organic produce on offer is therefore in high demand, making the markets and kiosks a bustling counterpoint to the tranquillity of this Sunday morning.