Marshes pavilion plans get green light from council ahead of public inquiry
Campaigners demonstrate the footprint of the proposed pavilion on the Marshes. Photograph: Save Lea Marshes
The Council’s proposals to build a sports pavilion on the Hackney Marshes were approved by its own sub-committee last night, ahead of a public inquiry on the same plans later this month.
The new facilities next to North Marsh by Cow Bridge would comprise of 16 changing rooms for football and cricket teams and a car park with space for 68 cars, 5 minibuses and 5 coaches. Another car park with 62 parking spaces is planned for East Marsh.
The new pavilion involves building on Open Metropolitan Land, meaning the plans still have to be approved by the government’s Planning Inspectorate (PINS) in a public inquiry later this month.
Representatives from objectors Save Lea Marshes (SLM) were present at the packed sub-committee meeting, alongside cricket club members who support the proposals.
During his speech in support of the council’s designs, Cllr Jonathan McShane, Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Culture said the Marshes’ primary use was sport.
But Save Lea Marshes member Caroline Day, said: “Their view that the ‘primary purpose’ of the marshes is for it to be utilised as a sporting ‘facility’ unfairly disadvantages local people enjoying the marshes freely for a range of pastimes and its value for nature.”
Ms Day said that while no one could “reasonably dispute” the need to improve the sports facilities, the plans would “unnecessarily destroy green space”.
“The council’s agenda is to commercialise our green spaces with large private facilities in the name of health and sport.”
London Fields batsman Robin Friend in Springfield Park. Photo: Stuart York
Jonathan Bannister from Stoke Newington Cricket Club spoke in favour of the application at the meeting. He told the Hackney Citizen he was “delighted” it had been approved.
“It will help bring many more children from Hackney and elsewhere in East London to a life of sport and help Stoke Newington Cricket Club build on their goal to become a centre of cricketing excellence”, he said.
“I appreciate that Save Lea Marshes, and the other groups opposing the plans, want to protect our green spaces for future generations, but the reality is that when the works are finally completed there will be a net gain in green space, more trees, a reduction in car parking and a facility fit for purpose. ”
Bannister said it was a “disgrace” that the plans will be heard at a public inquiry as it means yet further delays to the project.
Following the approval, Cllr McShane said: “This decision is great news, and brings us a crucial step closer to realising the full potential of the Marshes as a centre for sport and community activity, accessible to all.”
The sub-committee voted in favour of the approval 5 to 1. Councillor for Haggerston ward Barry Buitekant was the only vote against.
The planning inquiry will begin June 16.
lets get this built for the real user’s of the marshes.
great decision by hackney.
barry is friends with those idiots who oppose and openly stated his friendship. It was a disgraceful and underhanded show of favoritism by a pathetic weak member of the council who has no real interest in whats good for the community. shame on you.
As a regular user of the marshes I’m gutted by this. They’re not there for people who want to drive in once a week, waddle around a football pitch, and drive off again, leaving locals stuck with disruption.
Delighted to hear the decision. A new and fit for purpose facility will help to build on what is a fabulous local community spirit and to develop our children to enjoy sport to its full in a safe and friendly environment. Couldn’t be more pleased and am holding out hope for more common sense decisions. Let’s invest in our children’s future.
This will be a real asset for all of the community and a great decision by Hackney. Isn’t fantastic to see how the marshes have been brought to life in summer with a bit of leather on willow to complement the football and runners? Great facilities democratise public spaces and the proposals are in sympathy with the need to maintain precious open space.
What great news for the young people in Hackney. My son joined the Cricket Club 9 years ago when we played on a hard court area in Clissold Park. The club now has hundreds of boys, girls and adults playing week in, week out all year round. During the winter the Club hires sports hall from the local schools and in the Summer has the use of the excellent pitches at the Marshes.
The arguments against are flawed, as there will be more green area than before the club started using the Marshes a few years ago.
Short-termist NIMBYs are threatening to ruin this opportunity to put much needed facilities for Hackney sports people, so I would encourage everyone to voice their support at the public enquiry.
Stoke Newington Cricket Club has become one of the most successful cricket clubs in London and as local residents we should be proud of what the Borough now access to and support them all the way!
I have just come back from Hackney Marshes, where my son has been playing cricket with his school. He is also a regular player with Stoke Newington Cricket Club. I also cycled round the Marshes for my own exercise at lunchtime.
I am really pleased that the club, local schools, other sports, etc. now have the hope of decent facilities. In particular, it is important that we can support sports people of diverse ages, genders, and disabilities.
In difficult times politically, we should come together and support progressive initiatives. We should reject those serial objectors who seek to hijack a certain brand of progressive sounding rhetoric, but who are – in fact – profoundly elitist.
This is a great result for inner city kids who want to play sport. In particular, there are less and less places for children to play cricket and Hackney Marshes is a fantastic resource that everyone can share.
It was good to hear from the objectors that “no one could ‘reasonably dispute’ the need to improve the sports facilities”!
Great to see the application approved and common sense prevailing…. it’s about time. Disgraceful that young people and adults who want to participate in sport have been forced to use facilities that are a public health hazard and an eyesore to boot! All this in the shadow of the Olympic Park…. and it’s legacy ????
Great to see the tyranny of the minority defeated, let the real users of the Marshes get what they deserve.
I’m local and use the marshes every day and fully support the application and the facilities for the new pavillion. It’s great for local children to come out from behind their x boxes and be outside, I for one like seeing sports on the marshes, for children and adults alike, and much better that the facilities are fit for purpose. It’s a very small area, and replaces the existing half vandalised 70’s garage type structure. The marshes are for everyone, sportsmen and dog walkers, birdwatchers and runners.
Kate, wouldn’t it be better if the waddlers of Hackney could come to one of the finest open green spaces in London, on their doorstep and use quality facilities that would encourage them to pursue a more active and socially integrated lifestyle? Almost 30% of Hackney children are classed as clinically obese up from 16% in 2008. Give them a reason to put down their games consoles, tablet computers and remote controls and want to be part of something that has a positive impact on their wellbeing. My son and I come up to the Marshes from Tower Hamlets on a regular basis to play sport. We don’t drive. We take public transport and walk and there are hundreds if not thousands more who do the same. We never had these facilities in our youth. That is no reason to deny future generations the opportunity. Let this pavilion be built and let the all of East London reap the benefits.
Anyone who has looked at these plans in detail, knows full well that we will be losing green space and increasing cars on the marsh. I’m all for improved changing facilities on the marshes and do enjoy sport on the marshes, but not at any cost. There is no reason why the new changing rooms could not be built on the foot print of the old. I for one want my kids to be able to continue to exercise on the marshes in any way they see fit without having to pay for the privilege (via ever increasing pitch prices). These plans are encroaching onto green space and polluting the environment. I agree with Save Lea Marshes and would like to see the Marshes as wild and wonderful as they are now for generations to come, and not see them turned into just sports pitches with car parks surrounding them.
This is clearly the right decision. I live locally and the current facilities are disgusting and an eyesore. There is no downside, as rebuilding the facilities will surely increase sporting usage without constraining other uses in any way.
Great decision and can only encourage more and more city kids to participate in more sport where there are so few areas in which they can do so. How selfish are they who think its going make their nice weekend walk a bit noisier!
Congratulations to Hackney Council for striking such a blow positive blow for the youth of East London. It is absolutely shameful that in the shadow of the Olympic park, our youth have been given a derelict, graffiti covered dangerous building as their ‘clubhouse’. My concerns are equality and access. Girls and young women are very active users of the Marshes in both organised football and cricket but the existing building has no facilities for them at all – no where to change, no where to use the toilet. In America where Title IX dictates equal spending on boys and girls athletic activity, this building would have been replaced years ago by law. In response to Yevod’s comment – it would be a lovely thing if the new pavilion could be built on the footprint of the existing building but that would necessitate a two-story building — and that would make the building inaccessible to anyone with mobility issues. Sport is for everyone — male and female; able bodied and not.
This is great news. The comments about locals and the marshes in this thread are at best ignorant, at worst divisive. The marshes are not just for the locals, not just for the residents of Hackney, they are indeed for any member of the public who wishes to use them. I live near Kingsland Road but don’t complain about people coming from far and wide to use it…the marshes are not private land.
The provision of local green spaces, in Dalston for example, rank as pretty much the worst in London. Encouraging outdoor activities, in whatever form, should be one of our highest priorities in the borough. The facts are that the existing building is appalling, the new one can’t be built on the same site because of major utility issues and Stoke Newington Cricket Club are responsible for bringing 300 kids from around the Hackney to the site.
I fully understand, and am very sympathetic to, the perceived environmental issues but on balance cannot agree with the objections- there is an argument to suggest that the presence and stewardship of a cricket club will preserve the Marshes as they are.
In a healthy city, the needs of a localised society and the needs of local ecologies have to operate in a reciprocal relationship- a virtuous circle. We should be extremely grateful to the likes of SNCC for successfully encouraging so many Hackney children and parents to both play and socialize in this fantastic environment.
This is great news. This facility needs to be built as soon as possible as it is needed now. The current facilities are a disgrace.
Concerning comment 1 by richgreeners at the beginning of the Planning sub committee meeting I declared a non prejudicial interest that I had worked with objectors Tim Evans and Paul Charman on several campaigns. Principally the campaign to save Leyton Marsh at the time of the Olympics.
I thought that the planning objection before us on Wedensday was poor one so I argued against it and voted against. As a member of the Planning sub committee I have a duty to consider and vote on applications in an independent manner. And not vote in favour of an application just because the application is made by the council.
I note that richgreeners does not use his or hers real name. So if anyone is pathetically weak it is richgreeners.
barry, barry, barry seems you have bitten… you voted no because you have zero interest in the health and prospects of young children in hackney and have clear allegiances with the selfish opposing NIMBY’s . there is no valid reason you could object? A touch of the blatters I suspect?
pop down to the marshes on any given Saturday/Sunday and I will be happy to meet you, give you my real name and show you around the current changing rooms.
Those people who seem very angry about the objections should know that no one was arguing about whether there should be sport on the Marshes or whether the facilities should be improved or even replaced. On that all are agreed so it is not fair to attack people on something they never said and don’t agree with.
The principal argument was about whether the new buildings and car parking could fit on the already quite large paved over space or had to be made larger for more parking. So if you feel very strongly that existing grassland should be paved over for a bigger car park, by all means get angry but please focus your anger on the facts and not a made-up caricature of objectors.
Richgreener why you have invited me to see the current changing rooms puzzles me. I have no doubt that they are unfit for purpose. That’s not what we were discussing at the Planning sub committee!
If you have any complaints about my behaviour at the Planning sub committee or my work as a councillor I invite you to make a formal complaint to the council. Details on how to do it will be found on the council website.
Try and see beyond your personal interest and welcome debate. We ALL live on the same planet and it is dying!
Dozens of very dedicated people have campaigned successfully for decades to improve Hackney’s greenspaces. Thousands of people have given many more thousands of hours to plant trees, engage young people and pressure LBH into committing resources to parks.
It is idiotic to describe people who care about protecting greenspace as elitist or anti-health. The vicious attacks on Barry Buitekant illustrate a very unsavoury tendency in some sports circles to abuse anyone who dares to question poor development. (As Tony D noticed – no one is arguing against a new building). Do you really think libellous personal attacks are justifiable or helpful? The fact is the tree survey for this new building is inaccurate, sloppy and totally unprofessional. There has been no Ecological Impact Assessment even though the development is on the edge of a nature reserve of London importance. The cricket pitches were illegally built on part of the nature reserve and most of the trees planted 4 years ago as compensation are already dead. This kind of cavalier approach to the environment happens all the time and those who know and care about EVERYONE’s future should be celebrated not abused, least of all by others who will not even admit who they are or their vested interests. We have one planet and your children need it too.
This is great news, but why has it taken so long?
This so called changing area has not been fit for purpose for many years. Is it really happening now or is there still more hoops to jump through?
SNCC have done a fantastic job of encourage the young boys and girls of Hackney on to the Marches to play sport. Our children need and deserve this facility.
It’s not NIMBYish to not like the plans. A new pavilion is great for people who only visit the marshes occasionally and just see them as a giant sports pitch in need of swisher facilities. The net loss of green space is less welcome for people who use the marshes a lot for running, walking, cycling etc, and see them as a important green lung, not just an airy branch of Virgin Active.
Kate certainly has a nice line in patronising comment herself, casting sports users as those that ‘waddle around a football pitch’ and see the Marshes as ‘an airy branch of Virgin active’.
It is also ludicrous to suggest that sports users are just after ‘swisher facilities’. No actually what we want is a pavilion fit for purpose, for both cricket and football, that is not a disgusting, filthy, squalid, putrid and decripit hell-hole and in these austere times, it would be soul destroying to see the loss of the funding that amounts to £2.7m from the Football Foundation and the English and Wales Cricket Board that is key to getting this much needed facility built, if we have to wait much longer.
SNCC should be applauded for becoming a thriving club which has introduced cricket to many boys and girls in the borough since its inception, despite having to train and play matches, with no facilities, that visiting opponents are appalled by. The delay in building this pavilion has already turned many children away from active sport, as seen by the fact that Tower Hamlets refuse to let their boys play there in the Borough cricket competitions at every age group. The history of Hackney Marshes has been steeped in sport and long may that continue.
Hi Nilesh S, you said:
“My son and I come up to the Marshes from Tower Hamlets on a regular basis to play sport. We don’t drive. We take public transport and walk and there are hundreds if not thousands more who do the same.”
It’s so good to hear that. If only all these people would rise up and tell the council the marsh doesn’t need three car parks. Car owning households are the minority in Hackney and surveys show most people come to the marsh on foot, cycle or public transport. The new east marsh car park (which is part of this proposal) is an eyesore, and the arguments for it just don’t stand up since the east marsh changing rooms were demolished and the Marsh Centre was built to serve football on East Marsh. It’s at the far side of the marsh, across the river, from where cricketers play so I suspect they don’t realise what an issue this is.
The current north pavilion is horrible and Hackney council took a long time after replacement funding was obtained to come up with proposals. They commissioned one architect, then paused for a year or more and commissioned another. They spent thousands on an absurd ‘master plan’ which has sunk without trace (it would have put a canal and a diagonal path through the sports pitches). The delays are ridiculous but they are the council’s fault.
Think back to 2012-13 when Hackney council spoiled a cricket season, several football pitches and the brand new ‘olympic’ cycle path with Radio 1 Hackney Weekend. In 2013 the council proposed to hold more such events, putting major sports funding at risk. The sports clubs ran a brilliantly effective campaign which sunk that. The council’s claims about how much space R1HW would enclose turned out to be false (it took almost all the marsh), as did their claim afterwards that all damage had been made good, which it still hasn’t.
So the cricketers, footballers & rugby players have had some experience of how the council can’t seem to stick to a plan, and will say all sorts of stuff to push their latest project through. I’ve seen over a decade of this kind of thing, especially with the Olympics-related developments from 2005/6. The first plans for the cricket pitches put one on top of the wildflower meadow and we had to tell the council that they’re a designated nature conservation area – that’s how stupid they can be and I’m sure the cricketers would have been as shocked as us if that had been allowed to happen. A community recycling project was wiped out when the Marsh Centre was built, simply because the project officer didn’t even know it was there. The footballers say the Centre hasn’t enough changing rooms. Its green roof has died, I believe, and it was supposed to have creepers planted up the rock facades.
Sport is good (I played sport at national schools level many years ago and I enjoy seeing it on the marsh) but not the only way kids get introduced to the marshes. When I was a cycling teacher I brought lots of kids, and quite a few teachers, on to the marshes. Forest schools are bringing local kids, supported by the community tree nursery. It’s not a competition, obviously – I’m just saying. If you only know the marshes through sport, then you may not know about all this other stuff.
As for being grateful for more trees, up to 2007 or so, we had regular volunteer plantings which created young woodlands all over the marsh. The Olympics put paid to that because extra pitches were crammed on to the main marsh. The council then got contractors to plant ‘olympic’ trees – which were stupidly planted in a grid like a commercial plantation and have died in large numbers, unlike our plantings, because neither the contractors not the project officer knew about looking after young trees on the marsh. Trees planted at the Marsh Centre have repeatedly died. The hedge on Homerton Road, ripped out for Hackney Weekend and finally replanted last winter, is likewise currently dying. So council promises about trees don’t impress me, and the volunteers could have been making a better job of it all these years.
The council is making claims about public transport at the marsh which flatly contradict what it said in the 2013 Events proposals. Both sets of claims can’t be true.
So I don’t trust the council (at political and planning level) to look after the marsh for any of us, and therefore I think it’s right for their proposals to be scrutinised in detail by a Planning Inspector. If the Inspector passes it, that’s that. If they don’t, it’s because the council can’t convince an independent expert, which would be the council’s fault. I just wish they would get their act together and stop causing us all such grief.
Tim, our journey to the Marshes takes a least an hour including 30 minutes walking. This with a large and heavy kit bag which I have to carry for my young son. Not driving is a personal choice I make which is no doubt the same for the others I referred to. However, this completely overlooks the needs of the less physically able, youngest and oldest users of the new facilities. Just as importantly, those users who come from much further away for whom anything other than driving (often with several children) is the only practical choice. Properly planned and laid out car parking is essential for the new facilities in the north Marshes. I can see that. Clearly, from the comments above and made previously, the majority of reasonable people can see that. By all means go and berate LBH for being utterly useless if that’s what you believe but do not penalise us for their perceived shortcomings.
get a life tim or a bird… either way your argument has no grounds.
I’ve been on Hackney Marshes twice today. My elder son went to practise cricket this morning; playing the world’s greatest game with a progressive and successful club. Whilst he played, I walked from north to south across the Marshes and then into the Olympic Park and back through Hackney Wick.
This afternoon, my younger son and I went for a bike ride. Along the river, almost until the Olympic stadium, then back up through Stratford, the Olympic Park again, East Marsh, then across the road into Walthamstow Marsh and Springfield Park.
It’s a remarkable environment, which we are privileged to enjoy. It is not a pristine wilderness; it’s much more varied, diverse and interesting than that. I am so pleased that I and my family can make use of this fabulous facility on our doorstep. I would like everyone in our locale to be encouraged to use this environment for their own exercise, recreation and well being.
If I thought that this fabulous resource was being damaged in the slightest by the proposed development, I would shout from the highest rooftop immediately. I do not think this. Rather, I think that we have the rare privilege to be in receipt of substantial funding to improve facilities. The opportunity is presented to us to permit our young people to take part in sport, exercise and be healthy in this fabulous environment.
Those that seek to prevent this are wrong.
The last time I read someone claiming they would be the first to defend nature, but in fact attacked local environmentalists, was when Hackney Citizen published an article criticising those campaigning against the Stoke Newington Sainsbury’s development at Wilmer Place. Fortunately those who knew better and cared more prevailed and we saved Abney’s woodland edge.
It is easy to claim to defend nature but considerably more time consuming and lonely to actually do it. For a start one has to understand how things live and die. As time progresses it will be increasing easy for anyone to see how the trees on the Olympic Park are dying. They were too big when planted, have insufficient roots and many (most?) will die. Some already have. So too have the trees planted around the south marsh car park, the marshes eastern fringe and the north marsh cricket pitches. If you choose not notice, you do not suffer watching things die. Nor do you have to ask yourself am I responsible for acting to prevent this? So most people do not notice. What is more, as we actively participate in the destruction of life on earth – through climate change and mass extinctions – some of us even choose to condemn those who speak up. Life is easier when we can live in our own little bubbles of fantasy undisturbed by reality. But if no one notices, or if those who do notice are silenced by those who would rather not know, then more trees will die, more habitat will be lost, more species will be exterminated and more ignorance will spread.
If you want endangered mega fauna to survive then you expect Indians to live with tigers and Africans to live with elephants. Sure if you’re in the ‘we hate nature’ brigade you don’t care about extinctions but if you want orangutans or gorillas to exist, can you seriously refuse even to consider the impacts your lifestyles have? No we don’t have endagered mega fauna, they’re already dead, but we might have had otters return to the Lea had development been handled more sympathetically. No chance now thanks to Prescott Lock and increasing water pollution.
No one is seeking to prevent rebuilding of the changing rooms. No one is trying to stop anyone playing cricket. No one is claiming North Marsh or anywhere else is a pristine wilderness.
We just know more than you do about the harm being done and we are trying to bring that to the attention of others. If you care come and listen to the evidence, then make up your mind.
“If you choose not [to] notice, you do not suffer watching things die.”
For the most part, a very beautifully articulated comment from Russell Miller.
Well said Russell and Tim. No one has spent more time selflessly working to make the Marshes beautiful for everyone who visits, whether they are playing sport or looking for birds.
And yet again Cllr Jonathan McShane, Cabinet Member for Health, Social Care and Culture succeeds in portraying anyone who questions the details of his schemes as being ‘anti-sport’. And from the looks of it, it has worked well.
How many times can we be divided as a community by simplistic nonsense like this? Personally I think the new pavilion is both needed and rather attractive. Putting in a sensibly sized car park was all they had to do to win everyone round but instead it’s the usual divide and rule.
How much damage can one ruthlessly ambitious local politician do? Can any individual in the past century in Hackney compete with the Cllr for the destruction of green space and the removal of land from its use as commons?
Fortunately, most of his schemes are defeated or fall flat – remember the 5 mega events a year for the Marsh, how anti-sport was that? But in the process of dealing with this tirade of idiotic schemes local volunteers are distracted, demoralised and ultimately exhausted instead of looking after trees or more useful things than protesting the Cllr’s latest brainwave.
I think it’s time for Cllr Jonathan McShane to get a new brief and to have someone who commands wider support and respect in post.
While Russell goes wildly off topic talking about tigers, elephants, orangutans and gorillas, this has been happening.
‘Figures published on Thursday by Sport England, show an alarming drop in adults participating in sport on a weekly basis.
Alarmingly, while four years ago 23.6 million adults in England failed to take part in any sporting activity each month, that number has now risen to 25.2 million, an increase from 55.4 per cent of the adult population to 57.7.
Worryingly the decline is highest among those earning the least, with the percentage of lower income adults in regular sport reaching its lowest point since the survey began.’
So while the obfuscation of the pavilion’s opponents continues, they play there own small part in reducing participation in sport.
And its not only adults who are becoming less active.
Now for some more bad news
‘Half of seven-year-olds are not getting the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity, according to a new report by leading fitness experts.’
As a mum of cricketing boys, an owner of a dog, a country person who lives in Hackney I totally support this pavillion. We have been SNCC members since my boys were 4 yrs old ( 10 yrs)- it is a fantastic organisation which goes from strength to strength as can be seen clearly by the growth in numbers of boys and girls attending. It is a community, bringing together a whole number of different people in Hackney, getting kids out , doing excersise, learning about winning and loosing, team work, friendships – so much. The pavillion will be a speck on the grass of the Marshes and a truely valued facility which will go on for years and years aiding and encouraging people to use the Marshes. What is the fuss ?! Really ! Lets share the Marshes , there’s plenty of space , fresh air and grass to go around.
I’m in favour of the pavilion as a keen cricketer but I also have concerns. I love the Marshes and want to see it protected as a dog walker and nature lover but also want to see to see improved facilities for sports – particularly for children. I run one of SNCC’s youth teams and its embarrassing to host visiting teams and not be able to provide them with a decent toilet or shelter and somewhere to get a warm drink when the weather turns. Cricketers need this pavilion. But I worry about impact.
Having read all the comments what I’m not hearing from SLM are answers to the key points in favour – the fact there will actually be LESS car parking space, MORE trees and MORE green space when complete?
Sure it would have had less impact to build on the current site but I’m sure there are valid, serious reasons why that was decided against, as detailed above.
Nor could I understand the protests to the temporary Olympic basketball practice court – sure there’s short term impact but you walk over that meadow now you’d never know it was there. Flowers and bees abound. Maybe the soil isn’t the same, less grass/ bug variety – but they’ll come back in time. Same with the pavilion site.
So I say let’s vote through this pavilion and make Hackney Marshes a shining light of inner city cricket in England.
And if we can, let’s cycle there.
“the fact there will actually be LESS car parking space, MORE trees and MORE green space when complete?”
I fail to see how a larger car park and a pavilion built on a larger footprint incorporating currently green space be reconciled with this statement…
It’s great you want to cycle, but what is the basis for your claims?