GPA0005

Written evidence submitted by Paul Giles - Specialist 

Welcome back after, hopefully, a restful Summer Break!

The Membership I represent are aware that the PAC’s 15th September event ‘Grassroots Participation in Sport and Physical Activity’ is currently accepting evidence and that the CEO of Sport England, Mr Tim Hollingsworth, will be in attendance. On the Membership’s behalf I have submitted the following, please make Mr Hollingsworth aware.

The ‘Bank of England Sport Centre’, Roehampton, originally a Bank of England employee-only sporting resource, commenced accepting Local Community members from 1995. These ‘Sports Centre’ members were soon contributing 90% of the Centre’s annual income.

Sport England were involved before the Centre was leased to the All England Lawn Tennis Club for 15 years from mid-2021 and renamed the ‘AELTC Community Sports Ground, Roehampton’. Although the very name indicates a continuing positive approach to Grassroots Sport Participation, the new operator regrettably has introduced a growing series of Community Sport Impediments, some of which are outlined in the attached letter.

Most significantly, and not part of that particular letter, is the site’s 20-yard indoor pool, in daily use since 1970. With the loss of pools Nationally and within Wandsworth in particular, it is a vital Community resource including local schools and clubs. The AELTC as operators chose not to re-open the pool even though it had been in full operation up until just over a year earlier. Communication with the Chairman of Sport England regarding a route to re-open the pool commenced in early October 2021, eventually leading to a commitment to meet with the AELTC to discuss re-open options, some of which had already been directly communicated to the AELTC by the Membership.

We regret to report that nearly a year on from that first communication even the simple objective of meeting with the AELTC – itself a major UK Sporting Institution – has not been achieved. How is the UK to improve participation in Community Sport if Sport England cannot within a year even arrange a meeting to discuss loss of facilities?

The attached letter separately shows that a childrens’ sport club have just had most of their facilities removed without consultation, rendering them non-viable as a club from next April. ‘Colts Cricket’, another childrens’ sport club, in operation at the site for 40 years, has seen two of its three cricket squares destroyed by the operator, again without consultation, costing tens of thousands of pounds in eventual repair work and excluding all cricket in the meantime. Why are Sport England apparently powerless to intervene in such situations, where they have been notified that all of Community Childrens’ Sport will have been needlessly eliminated from this site within two years?

The Membership look forward to hearing Mr Hollingsworth’s explanations.

September 2022