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Continued from previous page

 A FRESH START?
Thinking positively, one small step towards recovering some benefits from the wreckage,
would be to ring-fence the running costs that would have broken windows, been contributed by Hackney Council to Clissold Leisure Centre had it remained open, and establish a Clissold Leisure Fund, to promote community based sports, recreation and exercise – at least for the next couple of years. This may not be in the current draft Sports Strategy (itself already overdue by some months), but this is no reason for not doing it. Money could be made available to improve sports and recreational facilities in Clissold Park, already used by hundreds of tennis players, joggers, cricketers and footballers, but without changing rooms or other facilities of any kind.

Think of the pitiful gravel kickabout area next to the children’s playground where young people are supposed to play – that could be turned into a decent multi-activity area. Think also of the poor old park paddling pool, loved by thousands, yet closed for several years due to budget cuts, though opening again this year but without the proper upgrading or major refurbishment so badly needed.

Such a fund could also support more sports development officers working with locals schools, community groups and organisations for older people, to encourage more indoor fitness sessions as well as more outdoor recreation. Money could be made available for coach trips to pools outside the Borough. Whatever, we urgently need a strategy and a budget to provide the residents of Stoke Newington with a short-term recreational policy which will keep people fit and active until the Clissold Leisure Centre opens again, or is levelled to the ground and started again. After all, there is the Olympics still to come. But is is better not to go down that road right now.

Clissold Leisure Centre – Timeline

1995 Hackney Council applies to Sport England (& Sports Lottery Fund) for a substantial grant to develop a new Clissold Leisure Centre. The total cost of the new Centre is estimated to be £7 million. The existing site consists of two separate pools, one from the 1930s, the other from the 1960s, and a community hall.

1996 Hodder Associates win a competition to design the new Centre. Hackney’s Chief Executive signs a contract with a builder even though the architectural plans are allegedly not even finished.

June 1997 Sports Lottery Fund awards a grant of £8.5 million. Five months later Hackney Council asks for, and gets, another £1.5 million. In total Sports Lottery Fund give £10,028,979.

1998 Work begins on the building, (due to be finished by 2000) at a cost now estimated to be around £12 million.

June 1999 The original completion date. The first of at least five missed deadlines.
January 2000 In a letter to a Stoke Newington resident, the Director of Learning and Leisure apologises for ‘the significant delay in the completion of Clissold Leisure Centre which is the matter of detailed investigation by the Council’. (Details of this investigation have never been made public.)

March 2000 The next completion date, now extended to June, 2000.

April 2000 The District Auditor criticises Hackney Council for long delays in opening date and additional costs: CLC now rumoured to cost an astonishing £21 million! The Auditor notes that ‘it is vital that those commissioning services have the required expertise to specify properly and then manage the contract with the outside providers; this is not often the case at Hackney’.

June 2001 Feature article in Building Design quotes a source close to Sport
England saying, ‘The Clissold is the worst thing that has ever happened to
Sport England’.

July 2001 Yet another new revised completion date. But this deadline is
missed too ...

Autumn 2001 ... and so is this one. The new deadline is November, 2001, at
a cost now rumoured to be £26.7 million.

February 2002 Clissold Leisure Centre finally opens – though not all facilities, some of which will never be used. As soon as the doors open, complaints about building design faults begin.

December 2002 ‘Ranks highly as the lottery project from hell’ (Building magazine).

November 2003 Clissold Leisure Centre is closed temporarily for investigation of continuing faults, initially for a week, then for three months.

January 2004 Start of High Court proceedings in which Hackney Council seeks ‘substantial damages’ from architects Hodder Associates and quantity surveyors Davis Langdon & Everest.

February 2004 Mayor Jules Pipe issues a public announcement regarding Clissold Leisure Centre, regretting the disappointment to users caused, expressing anger at all those responsible for this catastrophe, and finally confirming that the total cost to date has been £31 million.

March 2004 The Mayor bows to public pressure and is hosting an Open Day
at the Centre on 24 April between 10am and noon. Don’t miss this...