Sobell Ice Rink Closure: Petition + Protest

samlc

Hi all,

It's come to light in the week that the council are planning to close the ice rink at the Sobell Centre and turn the space into a soft play area.
Understandably having the rink at a time where energy bills are high is a challenge but the main issues we have is that Islington council have been quite opaque with their figures and the way they have gone about all of this: having already drawn up plans without any research or public consultation/scrutiny and delegating the overall say to the Corporate Director of Resource.
There are various rinks around the country that are sustainable and one is opening up in Lea Valley soon which I might add has far fewer transport links. So a bit baffled why this rink on the doorstep of North London's busiest interchanges can't be managed better by GLL - it's not an excuse for closure. We also have 203+ soft play facilities in London and only 4 Ice rinks.

Would appreciate any help and support the community here can lend us by signing the petition below and attending the protest at:

Islington Town Hall on Thursday the 18th May - 6pm onwards.


https://www.change.org/p/save-sobell-ice-rink

There are also twitter and FB groups for more info: @savesobell and "Save Sobell Ice Rink"

Happy to answer any questions as best I can.

Thanks!

Ali

How many people use it ?

samlc

The council say 475 people per week, but we have reasons to doubt that as they have no way to track how many people use the rink that are part of private group bookings outside of the public skating sessions

Ali

Thats more than I thought it would be. I wonder what numbers are like at Ally Pally

HolbornFox

There is a feature on this on ITV news.

overandin

I was a frequent user of Sobell ice rink, this is such a cop-out from Islington, yes it costs money to run, but it always used to be shut during the week with no one using it! I think it was mismanaged a great deal, it should be open as much as possible, it is a perfectly sized rink for learning whereas Ally Pally and Lee Valley (how did they misspell that) are very large.

The insurance will pay to rebuild it, it'll never come back once Islington reinstate the trampoline park and add more soft play areas as cash cows and Islington will not produce talented skaters anymore.

Ali

Prety good turnout at the Town Hall demo

samlc

Just an update on this:

The council have released an online consultation: https://www.letstalk.islington.gov.uk/sobell-project

It's open until July 7th and is what the council will base their final decision on so the more responses we can get for keeping the ice rink the better our chances.

You'll need to register and sign-in to fill out the short survey and if you're stuck for what to respond then the guys organising against the closure have some sample answers you can use here: https://savesobell.co.uk/how-to-fill-in-the-consultation-form

If you could fill it in and spread the word, that would be most appreciated!
Thanks!