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Cllr Ruth Polling outside the Sobell Centre with Green Party activist Michael Coffey |
Campaign to save Sobell comes to the centre’s own front door
Outside the building she has earmarked for demolition, councillor is told she’s not listening
A CAMPAIGNER fighting plans to rebuild the popular Sobell Centre in Finsbury Park clashed bitterly during a face-to-face confrontation with a leading Islington Lib Dem councillor who is behind the scheme.
Green party activist Michael Coffey, who was collecting a petition against plans to redevelop the sports centre told executive member for leisure, Lib Dem councillor Ruth Polling, that she was not listening to people.
The two met outside the centre as Cllr Polling was on her way to an appointment inside.
The council plan to demolish the 35-year-old Sobell Centre – used by more than half a million people a year, including 3,000 school children – and replace it with a new building. The new centre will be surrounded with new housing.
More than 1,000 signatures against the scheme have been collected by the Greens, who argue that it would make more sense to keep the current building and expand on site.
Mr Coffey slammed the two-month consultation over plans for the new centre as a sham.
“This is not a consultation,” he told Cllr Polling. “You have presented four options which all amount to the same thing – demolish the centre. That’s an ultimatum.”
He added that people want to see an option that preserves the green space, and a refurbished centre.
“The fact is this is not a listening council,” he added.
Cllr Polling said that green space would be maintained under the new scheme but the building would be demolished because it is in a very poor state.
“We have only provided options that the council can afford,” Cllr Polling added. “No one will forgive me in five years’ time if we have to sky rocket council tax to pay for refurbishment which is fundamentally unaffordable.
“We have assessed the way other leisure centres have been constructed over the past three to four years and discovered that actually the cost per metre for refurbishment is massively higher than cost to rebuild.
“As for green space, the options offer new areas hidden away from the main road and much better quality than there is here today.”
Mr Coffey asked if Cllr Polling had thought about what the users would do during the two years the centre was being rebuilt. “People are saying to us: ‘Where I am going to go’,” he said. “What will be the long term impacts on people’s health?”
The Reverend Stephen Coles, of St Thomas’ Church, Finsbury Park, also criticised the scheme this week.
He said the council has “failed to consult on the redevelopment of the Sobell and to ask people if they would prefer refurbishment or redevelopment”.
He added: “I filled in the consultation with the four possibilities thinking it was a consultation about if, not when, they decide to redevelop. I assumed there would be a consultation about whether to redevelop but I’m beginning to wonder whether that’s going to happen.
“Unless they can prove that it’s in such a bad state that it’s dangerous to keep it open it’s hard to justify spending all that money.
“Also, the parkland surrounding it should be saved because Islington is short of green space.”
Retired Islington Council worker and Sobell user Ellen Docherty said she wasn’t even aware of the consultation.
She added: “I’m here twice a week for osteopathy and aerobics but I only noticed the poster about this scheme last week. I’m disabled and I can’t travel too far – where will I go?”
She said she couldn’t understand why they couldn’t refurbish the current building.
“Why pull an old building down when you can refurbish it. They refurbish old churches these days, so why not a sports centre?”
Cllr Polling said that it is hoped that the majority of users will be accommodated at other council-run sports centres in the borough during the redevelopment. |
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