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Don’t let ice rink shut
• JAMES Dunnett’s proposal for the Sobell Centre certainly looks an improvement on the council’s, firstly in that it would keep the centre as a major attraction, rather than turning it into a shoe box buried under a housing estate; and secondly in that it keeps the great majority of the site in community use rather than turning it over to a developer (My Sobell vision: new swim pool, high-rise flats… and no bulldozers, February 27).
It still raises a number of interesting questions, however, the most important being whether we could realistically expect any scheme to be funded by housing development in the current market. Outside the council’s Lib Dem executive, I can’t believe anyone really believes a housing-funded redevelopment will go ahead at the Sobell, but while the council presses on with its pipe-dream, the existing building continues to fall into disrepair – with the very real danger, for example, of Islington’s only ice rink having to close within the next few months, because no one wants to spend money on necessary equipment when officially the centre is due to be replaced.
Waltham Forest is looking into a strategic long-term leisure management partnership – an approach which (in the lack of adequate funding from government) would seem potentially appropriate to Islington.
I would urge Islington Council to abandon its redevelopment proposals for the Sobell; to recognise that the existing centre is popular and has the potential to be even better; and to investigate more realistic funding options.
And in the meantime to guarantee that it won’t allow the ice rink to close.
ANDREW MYER
Green Party Highbury Team
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