|
|
 |
| |
Sobell Centre reprieve a victory for people power
• LABOUR welcomes the report about the reprieve for the Sobell Leisure Centre and the repairs that will be done there to the roof and ice rink (Battle won to keep sport centre open, May 14). This is a victory for the campaigning power of people over a Lib Dem council that refused to consult them in a balanced way.
In all, 4,500 users of the Sobell agreed it should be refurbished. Thanks go to Barry Hill, the customer representative at the Sobell, for his tireless work in safeguarding this threatened leisure facility.
Last July, Islington North Labour Party held a public meeting on the Sobell at Emmanuel Church. Islington North Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn MP and Labour councillors have campaigned since then for a fair consultation that includes refurbishment as an option.
The provision of sports and leisure is vital at all times but especially so during a recession when the activities available at the Sobell help keep people’s spirits up.
TRICIA CLARKE
Secretary, Islington North Labour Party
• PLAN B – sackcloth and ashes, shelving the flagship £25million Finsbury Leisure Centre development – might not have been necessary for Councillor Ruth Polling if she’d taken my advice in 2006 and approached many of the 77, mostly City, football team users as pipelines for City commitments to rebuild it.
The London Symphony Orchestra did just that with the UBS Bank, which gave £12million to help rebuild nearby St Luke’s church as a concert hall.
I tabled the list at a meeting of the EC1 New Deal board, on which she is a council representative, in 2006 but there was little interest. The majority and council officials probably saw themselves as property developers by proxy, with the exciting prospect of a muscular centre, a monument to themselves, financed by hundreds of flats. They probably had never lived through the frenzy of a property bubble. One heard no more.
Among the company teams were JP Morgan Cazenove, NatWest Chaps, Collins Stewart, Toronto Dominion Bank, Barings, UBSWarburg, Henderson Global, Banco Brasil, Reuters World and Thomson Financial. There were many contacts in other teams.
City employees are the biggest users of the leisure centre. A New Deal survey showed that 70 per cent of local people did not use it.
Approaches would have been made well before the credit crunch began in August 2007 and only gathered pace in 2008.
Cllr Polling needs to tell the public why these pipelines to the City were not tapped. If they weren’t, it doesn’t say much for the financial acumen of herself as leisure member of the council executive and the council’s £100,000-plus finance, environment and planning officials.
The finance officials must be in regular touch with City institutions as a third of the £500million council pension fund is managed in-house.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street, EC1
• EC1 New Deal for Communities Partnership Board is very disappointed by Islington Council’s decision to put back the redevelopment of Finsbury Leisure Centre, although we understand entirely its reasons for doing so.
While we are pleased the council is still committed to the project, over the longer term, we are well aware that the leisure centre does not have all the facilities local people want. Responses to the 2007 public consultation showed considerable support for a new community-focused facility, adding to the range of leisure services already provided in the centre.
We are doubly disappointed as the emerging proposals for the project included new, affordable, family-sized housing that would have gone some way to alleviating some of the overcrowding that many EC1 residents experience.
However, we are delighted the council has decided to proceed with the renovation of Ironmonger Row Baths and EC1 New Deal for Communities has agreed to provide £3.7million towards this. We look forward positively to a time when plans for the leisure centre will be as advanced as those to refurbish the baths so that all EC1 residents are able to enjoy first-class swimming, sport and leisure facilities.
MATHEW HUMPHREYS
Chairman, EC1 New Deal for Communities
|
| |
|
|
 |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
|
