“LUNGS” TO LONDON

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 March 1937, Page 10

“LUNGS” TO LONDON

FINDING GREEN SPACES. A former Manchester bricklayer has spent 'every week-end of the last three years mapping out London’s 45 square miles of “green belt,” designed to pre- . serve a. ring of fields, woods, and farms around, the city, states the “Sunday Chronicle.” lie is Mr Richard Coppock, general secretary of the National Federation of. Building Trades Operatives and chairman of the L.C.C. parks committee, whose work in the newly-complet-ed scheme' has just been praised by Mr Herbert Morrison. Mr Coppock may be an ex-bricklayer but he has always hated bricks. His love for green fields dates' from the time he roamed' the streets of -west Hulme as a small boy, looking for a place to play football. .“For tho last three years 1 have spent all my week-ends, wet or tine, exploring tho country round about London,” said Mr Coppock to a “Sunday Chronicle" reporter. "We had to do everything as secretly as possible to prevent speculators getting wind of our plans and holding us up to ransom. “We spread our maps on the ground, held them down with stones, and conducted our conferences with local authorities in the middle of fields and behind hedges and walls. Tho plans never once leaked out.” Mr Coppock was a. member of the Manchester City Council until his trade union duties brought him to Loudon and the L.C.C. "When the Labour Party won the L.C.C. elections.” he said. "Herbert Morrision gave me the parks and open specs to look after; the chance 1 bad dreamed of all my life.” I Mr Coppock, though he represents 4(10.000 building trade; workers, has no compunction about stopping the indiscriminate spread of London’s desert of brick.

“Satellite towns will grow outside the green belt." he explained, "and the more beautiful surroundings will mean better houses."