Pitches for our community

• PLANS for Queen’s Crescent Community Association to assume responsibility for the Malden Road pitches, as you reported (Kids face ‘pay to play’ on sports pitches, July 7) should be welcomed, not lambasted.

Prior to serving as a trustee of QCCA I spent three years and many hours each week as a volunteer running a football club on the Malden Road pitches every Saturday morning. 

At its height over 40 children would participate in weekly football sessions aiding their personal and social development in a supervised and structured environment.

I learnt from this experience that physical space is not enough, but also the active involvement of individuals and community groups to use and manage the space and ensure the facilities are used, maintained and managed to serve the interests of the local community. That is why QCCA’s plans, far from “privatising by stealth,” as its critics allege, can actually help to “communitise” the pitches, ensuring they are run by and for the community.  

QCCA are well placed to ensure a balance between free use and structured activities and any income from structured activities will be reinvested in its work to provide serve the community. 

CHARLES KEIDAN
Address supplied

Free for kids

• THE football pitches in Malden Road will be free to all local youngsters contrary to your July 7 report.

Queen’s Crescent Community Association is a charity and we have discussed with Camden Council our management of the pitches to make sure many more young people use the pitches than do at present and that they get the most out of this wonderful community facility.

We will be running courses through the summer and drop-in sessions after school. 

We have built changing rooms next to the pitches and will provide local youngsters with footballs and equipment to make sure that they get the best out of the pitches. 

We will also have instructors and others on hand to oversee their use and give youngsters help with their game. 

Everything we do on the pitches will be free of charge to young people and, as best we can, we will make sure all activities will be aimed at local young people of every age.

As a charity we have managed, after considerable effort, to raise sufficient money to run our summer sports programme this year as well as funding for the next two years which we would not have got had we not agreed to take responsibility for the pitches.

We believe that our work on the Malden Road pitches will mean many more young people enjoying the facilities there and getting the most out of them, not fewer. 

We will be evaluating the effect of running the pitches after the summer and discussing this with local residents.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Queen’s Crescent Community Association

More access

• YOUR report suggests about the Malden Road sports pitches suggests there will be charges for local young people to use them.

This is not the case. Everything provided for young people on the pitches will be free.

The council supports Queen’s Crescent Community Association taking over management of the pitches precisely because they will increase free regular access to the pitches for local youngsters – many of whom feel too scared to use them at the moment. 

In addition to providing proper management of the pitches to allow this free access the community association will also provide equipment and training to help young people with their game. This is part of a much fuller programme for young people that QCCA will be running over the summer.

QCCA is a valued long-term partner of the council because they run a range of good local services to people in need. 

They have recently got to the second stage of a council bid to tackle equality and cohesion issues in the area. 

So long as they continue to be a well-managed organisation, running services that meet community need, we will continue to work closely with them.

CLLR SARAH HAYWARD
Cabinet Member for Communities Regeneration & Equalities
CLLR JULIAN FULBROOK
Cabinet Member for Housing
CLLR LARRAINE REVAH
Cabinet Member for Children Schools and Families 
& for Gospel Oak ward
CLLR THEO BLACKWELL
Cabinet Member for Finance, & for Gospel Oak ward 
CLLR SEAN BIRCH 
Cabinet Member for Sustainability and Transport
& for Gospel Oak ward 

Published: 14 July, 2011