Great news on Homestall Road Sports Ground

Back in 2010 when we first became Councillors, Southwark Labour committed £2million to build new sports facilities and improve existing ones. We wanted our borough to have a lasting legacy from London 2012 for our young people.

One of the projects we fought for was £250,000 worth of improvements to the Homestall Road Sports Ground. The first stage was completed over the summer and saw new gates to improve security as well as all the great new grass pitches which reopened at the start of the football season.

The volunteers who run Athenlay Football Club (who are based at Homestall Road) do a huge amount of work to run the teams for hundreds of kids in our area.

The next stage is for the old artificial pitch to be brought back into use and work is expected to start in early 2014. Following that we hope that the changing rooms will also be replaced. We think it’s great that local young people will have this great new facility.

Throughout this process we've kept in mind that the development needs to be sensitive to local residents. We know that some were concerned that increased use will have an impact on their lives. To help make sure this isn’t the case the hours of use on the pitches will be limited and there will be no play after 7pm in the evening.

The end result of this is going to much improved facilities for a brilliant local sports club. Who says politics can't make a difference?

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