So the London Development Agency (LDA) has finally come clean about its outrageous plans for Crystal Palace Park and it wants to give developers yet another chance to grab chunks of it.

A Crystal Palace campaign fought a multiplex scheme under a trees and birds logo, and the slogan "Save Our Park."

Yet, its supporters had no democratic control, and an un-elected committee (from which one member after another resigned in disgust) hamstrung the protest by taking the community into an expensive facilitated dialogue about the future of the park.

Now, the dialogue stands exposed for what it really is a cynical exercise in manipulation by a pro-development establishment.

A powerful protest has been systematically diluted in a pseudo-democratic stakeholders' forum, while the LDA has, at its leisure, devised plans to slice off bits of the park. Crystal Palace Park is dying a death of a thousand cuts.

Over the years, land has been sliced off for Thicket Road, Crystal Palace Park Road, Ledrington Road, the National Sports Centre, the old caravan park, the new caravan park, the reservoir, the TV mast and the bus terminus.

The latest plans would reopen some land, but surrender new areas to development.

The idea we can finance work in our parks by selling them piecemeal is as crazy as trying to pay for medical care by selling your organs.

Environmentalists are being alerted to plans to sell off chunks of other parks and the message to developers from Crystal Palace is persistence pays off. Either we keep the developers out of our parks or they will keep us out.

A new, uncompromising campaign is being launched by the long-established Crystal Palace Community Association. To join, call 020 8670 4395.

Dr Martin Heath Ridge Wildlife Group