| |
Boxing club comes off ropes
A BOXING club in Harrow Road could be saved from closure if Conservative and Labour councillors can work together.
The All Stars Boxing Gym, which has trained a string of teenage champions, including an impressive roll-call of female fighters, is in urgent need of funds to pay £80,000 in rent arrears.
Isola Akay, who has an MBE for services to the community, wants the council to buy back the club or help them raise funds for the freehold.
Westminster North Conservative Parliamentary candidate Joanne Cash believes it should benefit from a controversial scheme unveiled by finance chiefs last week.
Westminster councillors will from May be given £100,000 to spend on deserving cases in their wards.
In a letter to the three Harrow Road councillors, Ms Cash, who lives in Bayswater, wrote: “This is also a wonderful opportunity for our parties to work together to support local people doing local work.”
Cllr Paul Dimoldenberg, the leader of the Labour group, said he was open to the suggestion, arguing that Ms Cash should lobby the Tory council to fund the gym from its own coffers.
He said: “The rules of the new ward budgets are that the money should not be used to substitute for mainstream council funding or for making grants. Last year, despite having a budget of over £250 million, the council gave the All Stars absolutely nothing in financial support.
“Our ward budgets of £100,000 can only do so much.” |
 |
|
| |
| |
