• AT the start of this year when charging (option 2) of Hampstead Heath swimming season tickets looked a realistic option, and this was reinforced by the recommendations of the Hampstead Heath Consultative Committee, I was ready to buy a season ticket.

This went against my lifelong views about access to common land but the swimmers’ associations had put a good case. I had hoped it would protect unhindered access for those in most need of the ponds.

The City of London Corporation’s half-baked “support scheme” does not achieve this.

I have not been able to bring myself to return to the ponds to swim since March 21. I only observed the arrangements at the first trial swim on July 1 and I was put off.

I have, since lockdown was eased, swum alone elsewhere in unsupervised waters.

While I understand the purposes of test and trace I do not trust the corporation or Heath senior managers with my personal data.

The introduction of wristband- type season tickets, which would require me to be scanned like a lump of meat at the checkout, was a further disincentive.

I certainly do not trust the corporation with the data which would be gathered about my movements on the Heath.

Furthermore I now learn they forwarded (without informed prior consent) personal data of season ticket holders to a third party based outside the UK, LoyLap.

The corporation is enclosing the Heath, turning a natural space into a commodity, supported by intrusive data gathering. Heath managers are destroying the place they claim to care about and which keeps them in jobs.

For the time being I shall continue to swim elsewhere in unsupervised waters. Any additional risks which I take in doing so are a result of the obduracy of the corporation.

MARY POWELL,
N17