Walk down Clissold Road past the recently opened - and even more recently closed - Clissold Leisure Centre, and you will notice that already three of the large glazed panels at the front of the building have been smashed and now covered over with corrugated iron.

An official communication from the Mayor posted in the doorway suggests that the centre may be closed for a long time, while disputes about whose fault this failed building ultimately rests with are resolved, and money is found to have the centre refurbished and made safe for use again. However, as any street-smart citizen will tell you, leave a few windows broken in a building like this for more than a week or two, and vandalism begins to spin out of control. This is the 'broken window syndrome', beloved of criminologists, who tell you that failing to fix the most minor of acts of vandalism means that, pretty soon, 'there goes the neighbourhood'.

Clissold Leisure Centre, once described by its architect as 'a catalyst for regeneration',
opened in February 2002, two years' late and massively over-budget. It was subsequently forced to close its doors in November 2003 owing to multiple faults and building design problems which made it unsafe to manage as a public facility. If the total cost is now agreed to be £31 million - as the notice on the door now admits - and the Sports Lottery Fund gave £10 million, then it means that Hackney residents paid a cool £21 million for a pool that was only open for 21 months and may possibly never open again. Given that in the original budget, Hackney Council (that is to say Hackney residents) were only required to contribute around £1.5 million, and ended up having to find £21 million, then many might concur that 'we was robbed'.

The scandal is now of such proportions that stories about Clissold Leisure Centre fill the
national press and airwaves, as well as causing a serious amount of heart-searching in the planning and architectural magazines. Ominously, Mayor Pipe admits that the costs of
making the building useable again may run into additional millions, money which the Council simply does not have. Note, too, that Sport England announced in January this year that 'Lessons have been learnt. I doubt if we will be putting more money into Clissold'. The whole sorry saga could fill volumes, but the issue that has caused most bitterness amongst local people and swimming groups is that the project has been shrouded in secrecy from start to finish. As local swimming coach Peter Cottle said in a recent local radio interview, 'We're just ignored. No-one takes any notice of us at all and no-one's been in touch with us from the council by phone or letter.' Another swimming coach, Greg McNeill, told the Guardian, that once the centre opened and faults were noticed, 'When we said all this we were called whingers.' 

On the same radio programme as Peter Cottle, local Tory councillor, Eric Ollerenshaw, claimed that: 'The majority of councillors have not got a clue what is going on because we are told this is in the hands of the lawyers and it is all confidential.' More, much more, of the background to this sorry story can be found on the local website: www.clissoldleisure.com 

Mayor Pipe was wrong when he said that many people would be disappointed by the closure. People are not disappointed so much as angry and bitter about the whole scheme - and have been from the very beginning, when it was obvious that the scale of the project was beyond the capacity of the Council, its management capabilities and
budgets. Not only that, the Council's ability to deal with external contractors seems
seriously at issue, and there are now rumours of a major falling out with Leisure Connection over customer refunds and other operational liabilities.

A dark cloud of hopelessness about the Council's ability to deliver the kind of leisure
facilities that people want, seems to have settled over the Borough, and beyond.
Finding out what went wrong, attributing blame and apportioning costs, could take years, and in itself cost hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal fees. Meanwhile local needs for exercise, recreation, sport and fitness now remain unmet.