Runners in race to save Finsbury Park track

Published: 27th May, 2011
by ANDREW JOHNSON

THE future of Finsbury Park running track is in doubt after Haringey Council said it could no longer afford to run it. 

London Heathside running club and Blitz American football team are among users trying to come up with a plan to run the track, which makes a loss of about £60,000 a year.

London Heathside fears the track could close if it cannot put a viable plan together by August. Paul Lemmon, of the running club, said: “We’d only really be able to open it for groups and our own purposes. We couldn’t afford the risk of opening it as a public facility.

“If it does close we’ll have to use Parliament Hill, the next nearest track. But a lot of youngsters who come here might not go that far. The great thing about Finsbury Park is that it has excellent public transport links.”

A spokeswoman for Haringey Council insisted it would not allow the track to shut down. 

“The aim is to lease the track to a third-party operator to allow it to remain open while removing the need for the council to subsidise running costs,” she said.

“The cost of the subsidy is around £50,000 per year, which is unsustainable in the face of such deep funding cuts by central government.”