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Centres face crunch
• WITH the credit crunch set to enter its second year, enough time has elapsed for Islington residents to think that Councillor Ruth Polling and her officials would have reviewed its effect on the financing of Finsbury Leisure Centre/ Ironmonger Row Baths and Sobell Leisure Centre projects. Both projects depend on development of hundreds of flats to raise many millions of pounds.
While the property slump got much worse, Cllr Polling held the Sobell Leisure Centre consultation last month, still involving up to four large blocks of flats and town houses. “All the designs include an element of housing development to contribute additional finance” was the only and rather cursory allusion to the obviously large part to be played by now-problematic housing funding.
On top of this, building cost inflation has hit pricing of projects. There are reports that building contractors have largely stopped tendering as they do not know where costs will go.
The two projects will cost a lot more than was bargained for. How much more? This must also call into question whether, or in what form, they will go ahead.
In light of the credit crisis and the property slump – together a radical change for the economic climate – I ask that Cllr Polling provide residents with detailed assessments of what the future holds for the two centres.
How is the council to cut its cap to fit the available cloth?
In 2005 I circulated to EC1 New Deal board, of which Cllr Polling is a member, a list of 77 mostly City football teams using Finsbury Leisure Centre and recommended that the banks and other companies be approached for commitments for financing, on the precedent of the Swiss bank UBS contributing millions of pounds to restore nearby St Luke’s Church.
I am unaware this was done but if it had been pursued with any vigour the Finsbury Leisure Centre/Ironmonger Row Baths might have been fully funded by now.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street
EC1
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