Spare a few pounds for the pond…

• WHEN the City of London, guardians of Hampstead Heath, spent a large fortune on building what many people thought were overkill dams round the ponds, they also built a “not quite an island” in the boating pond on the Highgate side.

Wildlife buffs argued at the time that it was daft for City of London to connect the island to the land with a short earth causeway because it gave rats and foxes a clear run to raid any nests that birds and ducks build there on the misguided assumption that the clever people at City of London have created a safe haven for them.

For many months now there has been a big notice by the “island” asking us to donate £50,000 to remove the causeway that City perversely built and so create the “true island” it could and should have been.

Curiously there’s still no indication of how much has so far been donated.

Most important there is no steer on why the City needs £50k for two workers and a mechanical digger to spend half a day cutting a simple channel to keep predators off the “island”.

Who is it at City of London that takes us all for complete fools?

BARRY FOX, NW3