Five Aside Football Pitches in Finsbury Park

twinspark

There are a couple of things that are being overlooked;

The park is controlled by three boroughs so it will take them for ever to implement and fund any plan but when they do you can be certain that the numerous committees who share the responsibility of being our social/leisure guardians and procurement tsars will have considered the needs of the many and the few - then tossed a coin to see who should be ignored and will done what they want anyway. [ A small bet anyone? on whatever facility is built being closed within three months due to a health & safety oversight? that's the recent form in FP the past 15-20years]

The hard standing that was the tennis courts is not a prime piece of the park it has been co-opted for all kinds of things but it's a revolting surface to play on and long overdue for updating. Using it for 5-a-side with club house or whatever still leaves a vast acreage for free use, the majority of the park in fact! where there a lot of facilities on site for children, bike lessons, skateboarding, running etc. - Still it's easy to forget these when you interest is to exagerrate for effect I suppose
[ How come there was no outcry when the train spotters platform next to the footbridge disappeared years ago?!]

ADGS

I got Ground Control for my birthday, as it happens, but have yet to start it.

If the plan involves adding streetlights in the park, I'm even more thoroughly against it. I like having somewhere I can go get a decent look at the stars sometimes.

nesta

If these pitches mean that i won't have to listen to grown men running around shouting their heads off every saturday and sunday in the school behind my flat then I am all in favour.

ActionVerb

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY

nesta

it is already in my back yard, surely the park is a more appropriate place??

Reg

<http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/BANANA>;

markwhitehead

A big open space where nothing much happens - I believe such a thing used to be called a "park".

I remember when there used to be one near here - where the Finsbury Experience is now, actually - you could just walk in there for nothing and play football or basketball or play with your kids.

I can't imagine how it worked. I think the Finsbury Experience is great, now that they've got armed guards on all the gates and admission isn't too expensive (as long as you're earning good money, of course!)

I hear that the company that owns it is planning special corporate Finsbury Experience weekends when it will be closed to everyone except the sponsors and their families. I've no objection to that - after all, it was they who invested all that money in it and made it what it is today!

I gather from a local historian that many years ago, before the Finsbury Experience was launched, a paid-for five-a-side football project was proposed. Believe it or not, some people objected that it would be a step towards "privatising" the park and making it less accessible to people round about. What a bunch of losers they must have been in those days!

ShaunG

Oh God isn't life too short for such tired cynicism. I give up on this thread.

ADGS

Where 'cynicism' equals 'any resistance to what big business tells us is good for us this week'. Might I recommend Barbara Ehrenreich's 'Smile Or Die: How Positive Thinking Ruined America' as a useful corrective?

Reg

Fret not. There's always the Evershot Road Open Space.

Ian

@ADGS big business can't really tell anyone what is good for it if they don't respond by paying for it. If nobody wants it it despite being told about it it will very soon become small business. There is a discussion to be had about common land/private land but Finsbury Park is a big space. If there was a serious issue about encroaching on public space I would be right there with some of the people here that have concerns. However, if some of the park can be better utilised, run, by a company leasing out land that means that people can play organised sport I'm not sure what I could be against. The objections seem to be that some people sometimes use it, but they can still use the rest of the park, this is a way of giving a lot of people a structured opportunity to utilise the park and do something good. Given an open park that is possibly usable many people may use it now and then. Given a place in a team that plays on a pitch, people tend to turn up and use space really efficiently. Come on folks, we should support that shouldn't we? We should be in favour of efficiently run space and organised exercise shouldn't we?

ADGS

So when this scheme generates lots of lovely £££ and they come for another slice of the park, that'll also be OK, because hey, there's still plenty left, right? It'll be the death of a thousand cuts, which also makes it easier to get past planning rules (just like councils seldom get rid of a whole allotment site at once, they sell off a bit here and a bit there, nice and gradual, so nobody kicks up a fuss).

And the mere idea of 'efficiency' as applied to a park gives me the heebie-jeebies. The whole joy and beauty of a park is that it's a glorious monument to inefficiency, as expressed by a hundred people reading on their lunch break or kiting or playing croquet...similarly, 'organised exercise' can be left to China as far as I'm concerned. PE lessons at school were bad enough.

(Which reminds me of something else: according to the park byelaws, a lot of the stuff people get up to in the park is *technically* against the rules. I forget whether this includes football outside designated areas, it certainly includes a lot of of other games including aforementioned croquet. These laws are, at present, enforced sensibly. ie, not at all, unless someone's being problematic and they need an excuse to chuck 'em out. Will that attitude continue once there's a profit motive to force footballers into certain areas? We'll see)

JoeV

There are already parts of the park that are privatised and charge for using their facilities, namely the running track and gym, so why doesn't this upset people (and other places that charge: the cafe the boat rental).

But what bothers me about the proposal is that the paved space may not be pretty but it is hardly underutilised! It's filled with people using it everytime I'm in the park at least when the weather is warmer.

If any sports space is underutilised it's the fields in the NE corner. Why not build the 5-aside pitches there?

dion

Exactly, tons of latinamericans play volleyball there all summer - where will they go?

markwhitehead

ShaunG "Oh God isn't life too short for such tired cynicism. I give up on this thread."
Saying you are going to "give up on this thread" simply because you disagree with the tenor of a contribution is a good example of "taking your ball home". Not very constructive!
Come on, stand your ground. Surely that's what websites like this are for - honest, healthy discussion!

andy

"Surely that's what websites like this are for " Please good god no. If you want to speak your branes there are plenty of other places for that. <http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/>;

markwhitehead

Really, Andy, why the disdainful tone?
When you want to raise something on this website you click on "start a new discussion". There's a clue in that. Discussing (local)issues absolutely is what this website is for - unless I'm missing something.
If so I'm sure you will enlighten me.

andy

Because I'm disdainful.

markwhitehead

Andy, I understand. How long have you felt this way?

Alex

@andy you're welcome, though not a recommendation as such. Jane Jacobs is on my reading list. Will turn to it when I've finished my current random reading matter [Wigan Pier Revisited](http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wigan-Pier-Revisited-Beatrix-Campbell/dp/0860684172) (the googling of which led me to the rather wonderful [LPFMG](http://londonprofeministmensgroup.blogspot.com/)). @ADGS big business might not be publicly accountable, but fortunately in this case our councillors will take the decision, and they ought to be highly responsive, especially with full elections looming in three months. Hence there's nothing anti-democratic about this. If it was unpopular (like closing A&E in Whittington) then they would be leafleting against it like mad. Actually I suspect it will be a fairly popular proposal. Certainly there are as many in favour as against on this thread. @markwhitehead it's the sheer change-nothing-ness of your position that gets me. If parks are to be free public spaces for all as a matter of positive principle, then where's the campaign to evict the bowls club and the baseball ground, both of which exclude non-players from other parts of the park? I'm also confused about what you actually favour, as at one point you say "the idea of doing up the area, perhaps with some five-a-side pitches, is excellent", but later you seem dead against any change at all. Would it somehow be ok if the council renovated and managed the facility itself, instead of leasing it out? What if they still charged users to defray the cost? Battersea Park have one of these centres with pitches costing £51 per hour - anyone know if there was any soul-searching or opposition to that proposal at the time?

ADGS

"big business might not be publicly accountable, but fortunately in this case our councillors will take the decision, and they ought to be highly responsive, especially with full elections looming in three months."

Just like how responsive they were about traffic calming in the 20mph zone? That was only a month or two further from the elections.

andy

I love the idea that the LPFMG was set up to meet hot chicks.

markwhitehead

Alex - "it's the sheer change-nothing-ness of your position that gets me" - no, I'm all in favour of change, if it benefits all the people, not just the few who are already better off than the rest!
So keep the park public so we can all enjoy it.
OK there's already a lovely old-fashioned bowling club and a baseball pitch, but I don't thing they are in the same league (excuse the pun) as a full-on commercial operation being given space on publicly-owned land.
I'm not doctrinaire, but you have to draw the line somewhere!

graeme

I have to say I did wonder who would represent the vast number of families and groups who hold all day volley-ball and basketball sessions and limbo competitions (yes I did see that) on that bit of ground over the warmer months. It does get well used as far as I can see. Parties and picnics too.

Why bring this to the table in the depths of winter when the entire park is virtually deserted? Very few people will be around to see the planning consent notices on lampposts should the council progress with this.

In my mind, for this to get support the council has to offer something to all the local users who would be displaced. If revenue from this private company is put back into visible resources for the wider community then it would get my support.

Though it is a bit forlorn, the space as it stands is open for all manner of uses and to a wide group within the community. A 5-a-side complex is one pastime, played by one pretty narrow demographic - blokes of a certain age who can no longer hack running the length of an 11-a-side pitch. (Yes, am generalising, but I've played 5's for years and have only seen a handful of ladies playing).

Everyone has their place though (and pays their C/Tax to have leisure facilities), so I'd hope a replacement resource would be made available somewhere.

dorothy

There's the in-line roller skaters too.

Reg

Where I have seen this emerging elsewhere the Council get an offer they find hard to refuse as they are essentially getting money for nothing - as far as they see it in a strict amenity space provision sense. The offer usually requires the use to be restricted to the company's clients at core times (early evenings and most of the weekend) with some kind of public/community use at other times. Why not encourage the Council to reprovide the hardstanding somewhere else in the park (or get the proposal shifted elsewhere)?

markwhitehead

Reg - why not just reject the proposal wholesale? It's a thoroughly bad idea, let's not talk compromise (sorry if that's very un-British!) let's just say "no you can't give away public land to a commercial operation".

By the way, g-unit, interesting that you pick up on the equal opportunities angle. If you go onto the website for Powerleague (almost certainly one of the contenders) ALL the pictures of people playing football are boys and men. The ONLY picture showing women is - guess what - the one to do with hiring rooms for social events - "Hold your special event in one of Powerleagues stylish function rooms."

I think this proposal can be challenged not just on the principle of handing over public resources to a commercial operation, or that it would deprive people of a space for their various activities, or that is environmentally unfriendly with the parking space for 60-80 cars, but also that it goes fundamentally against any equal opportunities policy.

Reg

Mark, it's not a thoroughly bad idea. The private operator provides facilities and managment of an operation that is much in demand by a significant minority. Girls not playing team sports is not the issue. Why can't we have both, and have other facilities benefit from the income? Think of it as a tax on those objectionable men and their hatchbacks who like football. Better? And why is the hardstanding there in the first place? I would imagine it was put there for a reason? Anyone?

JoeV

Can someone who knows 5-aside better than I do explain how 10 football pitches would fit into the paved area AND accommodate all the other facilities being proposed?

The more I read about the 5 a-side industry, and it is a growing, profit-making business, the less I like this plan.

This isn’t simply about putting in a few pitches to meet community demand. Everyone has been focusing on the 80 parking spaces, and rightly so, but the proposal also includes:

floodlights
pavilion housing changing rooms
an office
bar or social club

I don’t see how the space can accommodate all these uses.

Slabber

Better five-a-side pitches than basketball courts. Who plays basketball? It's a minority sport for tall people, the provision of facilities for which is some sort of PC pandering to ethnic minorities, as though young black kids want to be the next Michael Jordan rather than the next Jermain Defoe.