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Cutting these jobs is cruel and unnecessary
• DO you remember the song: In The Year 2525?
It told of a time when we would not need to go out or indeed move.
Most of that is fast becoming true, however, cutting the number of sports officers in Camden is helping this along at a pace (We’ll pay a penalty for sports cuts, June 25).
The dedicated people that run these sports clubs do not do it for the money.
They do it because they care about the children of Camden. Cutting their jobs and saving £30,000 a year is cruel and unnecessary.
Children need these clubs and the special people that run them.
Councillor Flick Rea misleads residents of Camden by insisting that there is nothing the council can do.
This council is selling off homes like it is going out of fashion, so why not use some of that money to fund the jobs and clubs?
David Gowers
Broxwood Way, NW8
Our ambition is to provide sport for all
• I AM writing to set the record straight following your article (We’ll pay a penalty for sports cuts, June 25).
First let me assure your readers that we have no plans to withdraw support from the highly valued Regent’s Park football league, and it continues to run as normal with a new session beginning in September.
We deeply value sport in the borough, and make every effort to provide a diverse range of sporting activities to widely different groups across Camden.
Our ambition is to provide sport for everyone at all levels of ability and agility and to provide the best possible facilities with the resources we have available.
Following a review of the sports and physical activity service, and extensive consultation with staff and unions, a new staff structure was agreed in May.
This has meant we have had to refocus support while trying to minimise the impact on existing activities as much as possible. We must remember that the council is required to provide value for money and we therefore have to balance the cost of services with our core funding and the amount of external funding we are able to access.
Our sports development officers play an important role in working with local clubs, schools and community groups to promote sport and active recreation in Camden and I am confident that our new, restructured service will continue this valuable work.
I understand that residents have also been concerned after reading some newspaper reports about changes to the basketball classes at Talacre and to the South Hampstead football group sessions.
The facts are simple. In order to provide the widest possible range of services to meet the varied needs in the community we need to extend our own limited resources by taking extra pots of external funding.
These are frequently time-limited and when they expire we have to review some of the sporting activities we provide .
These activities include a huge range of free and heavily subsidised services for young people to help them access safe, enjoyable and constructive sports activities in Camden.The summer programme that we are about to launch highlights these across the borough.
I can assure residents that, wherever possible, we will work hard to secure additional funding and will do our best to reprioritise services so we can continue to run as many sessions as possible.
However, we cannot take on each and every sports club and session when external funding runs out.
Cllr Flick Rea
executive member for culture
Trouble ahead
• I AM sure I was not the only one to be deeply concerned to read that the council is planning to axe the Regent’s Park football league.
What with the cuts to the local Haven Youth Centre, getting rid of wardens in Camden Town and now this, it just feels like we are storing up trouble for ourselves.
Thomas Neumark
Gloucester Crescent, NW1
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