A community garden Greenwich residents spent hundreds of hours restoring must make way for new housing.

The Royal Hill Community Garden was built on the Greenwich council-owned derelict site of an old police station.

Now the council plan to build new homes there and have told residents they must remove their gardening haven.

The site was an eyesore covered with rubbish and overgrowth after a planning application for new housing there was unanimously turned down by planning board members, so local residents decided to turn it into a community garden.

Tony Othen, local resident, said: “A few months ago we cleared the site of litter and made it into a community garden.

“The site was overgrown with weeds and litter. There was a history of intruders and crime against local businesses.

“Over the last several months at least 2,000 people visited the site such as residents and tourists. We reckon £3,000 worth of stuff has been given to us.

“We have had parties there where local pubs and restaurants have given us food and local schools have come for trips. A 14-year-old boy has built a planter for a Duke of Edinburgh award.”

Now the council are set to submit new a new planning application with a modified version of the original plans and have asked the locals to leave.

The residents have not responded kindly to the request and plan to challenge the application to save their garden.

Mr Othen said: “We as residents are very clear that we are not being nimby-ish. We are not saying that they should be no development but that there is a huge enthusiasm for a community garden. “If 50 per cent of the site was a community garden then that would be great. There isn’t any piece of land nearby we could use instead unfortunately.

“We have currently proved that within this area there are plenty of people who live in flats with no garden who need the opportunity to use a garden.”

Councillor Danny Thorpe, deputy leader of Greenwich council and cabinet member for regeneration and sustainability, said: “London is desperately short of housing and the Royal Borough of Greenwich, like all local authorities, is committed to creating new homes where we can.

“This pocket of land has been identified as a future site for housing and we must push forward to make this a reality.

“Until the project progresses however, we are liaising with current users of the space to explore whether they are interested in a temporary license to allow them use of the site before construction of new family homes with gardens begins.”