Ian Henderson is a community activist and local resident.
Dear Dame
There has been a gross abuse of the pitches at St Luke’s.
I notice comments referring to the £250k a year salary paid to Peter Bundey, the CEO of GLL.
GLL manages our leisure facilities and is a charity. I was very surprised a charity could reward its boss so lavishly!
The assets GLL manages on our behalf are not there to provide high salaries for Mr Bundey and colleagues.
The cynic might say that tennis and other corporate bookings are favoured by GLL because they provide a lush income stream….something that kids from local social housing like Sutton, Guinness and Lewis, Flood St and Worlds End cannot.
It is good to see a start has been made by Cllr Will and team to return St Luke’s for free use by local children.
This is what the Church,who own the land, and the local community want.
I often visit St Luke’s.
Most times it seems to be booked by corporates. There is nothing sadder than seeing kids with footballs looking sadly through the fences as they wait for a rare space to become available.
Back in 2016 I was very involved with Kings United. This was a team of locals who had been struggling to get some funds and practice pitches.
Fortunately, Ed Cadogan came along and supported us with a £5,000 donation. Even in those days, the only bookings offered were at 10.00 pm at night! On the one occasion they did get on the St Luke’s pitches one player was spotted by Chelsea and signed for them. To improve his game he moved to the Dutch League, Volendan.
from Sloane Square magazine
What was brilliant was the older players coached the younger players.
Cllr Will and the Parks Team seem to have made a start but with Spring and Summer on the horizon, she needs to lay down the law to GLL about ensuring our kids get priority over money-making corporates abusing our scarce resources.
Tennis coaching companies should not be allowed to book the pitches at peak times when kids need space to play football: it's very simple...our community assets are for our kids not money grabbing corporates.
Best wishes
Ian Henderson
Its easier to get a Doctors appointment than to book one of those pitches.
ReplyDeleteIts a crying shame that these spaces are block booked by companies , we need to show some balance here so that the amenitys are accessible to all.
ReplyDeleteThe spaces would be free if not block booked up by private schools.
DeleteSurely some space could be made after school and some provision for the school holidays.
ReplyDeleteSurely absolute priority should be given to local children during the state school holidays ?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Sport England , ' Collectively we need to use physical literacy as our guiding principle to develop the wellbeing of our nation at both national and local level '.
ReplyDeleteHave access to suitable areas to play sport seems essential to this directive. It would be good to know how the Company that runs these pitches is achieving these goals.
If we don't encourage our youth and make it easy for them to take part in activities such as Team Sports can we really complain when the same youths end up going down the wrong path due to a lack of direction and focus. Come on Emma Will , we can do better than this.
ReplyDeleteEver since its been done up it isn't for the locals anymore . Its all corporate . What about all the promises that ' we 'would work with residents.
ReplyDelete