Lord Harris of Peckham pulls the plug on the Sports Centre in Homestall Road East Dulwich

[lyons2]

On 9th November Lord Harris will pull the plug on the Community Sports Centre, at Harris East Dulwich Girls Academy, Homestall Road, East Dulwich. The School, that has specialist status (Sports & Enterprise), has failed to generate business, after taking over management from Fusion - The leisure provider for Southwark Council, according to sources.

Although an article has been published in Tuesday?s edition of the South London Press, however I fear that current users will have to find another facility.

The Sports Centre was build with Council tax payers? money, when the school was under Southwark?s control; Waverley school opened the facility to the local community and worked in partnership with Fusion ? Southwark?s leisure provider. The Sports Centre was opened in 2005, and Fusions? contract was terminated on 31st December 2009.

Since Harris has taken over the management for the Sports Centre there has been little, if no revenue expenditure to promote these excellent facilities. Which consist of a Dance studio, Badminton courts, fitness gym and outdoor (floodlit) soccer / tennis / Netball.

At a time when child obesity, health of the nation, are real issues, why deprive the local community of a very needy facility.

Maybe Lord Harris, a conservative Life Peer has not understood David Cameron?s "Big Society" concept, or has he?

If you feel as I do, please contact [email protected] tell her your concerns too.

[Alley Kat]

Always good to bash the area's most prominent philanthropist.

[intexasatthe moment]

Lyons , I've not seen the article , could you explain a little more ?

Won't the management pass back to Fusion ?

Will the general public no longer have access ?

With regard to Lord Harris being a prominent philanthropist ....it does sometimes seem to me that the public view is that he pays for schools to be built/refurbished ,when actually he contributes a tiny percentage of money towards the capital cost of the building .

For someone like Lord Harris with more than 3 Academies the contribution would be ?1.5 million for a new Academy .The total cost of building a new Academy is in the region of ?35 million.

Parliamentary questions reported last year in the press revealed that of the ?8.5 million pledged by Harris for his first 7 Academies ,only ?3.7 m had been received.

[lyons2]

One who think that the sensible thing to do would be to allow the Leisure Professionals run the contract for you and use the Sports centre as a cash cow for the school. Fusion I assume where not allowed the opportunity to retender for the contract, but there are many more Leisure providers, GLL (Greenwich Leisure Limited) are by far the biggest and who have invested in the centre.

So far as nobody from The Harris Federation has replied to me, I can only assume that the local community will no longer has assess, and by the way the staff are all being sacked too.

[DJKillaQueen]

Maybe the boy's school can make use of the facilities.

[lyons2]

The difficulties with the boys school is that the sports facilities are not accessible without going through the main school, whereas in the girls school the sports centre is a standalone building that does not mixed with the main school.

Local people need to complain about this unfair proposal and at the least Harris needs to come up with an alternative for the current users. Who have supported the Sports Centre, week in week out.

[lpool]

My observation from being part of local badminton group that has used facilities at Harris is the group that took over didn't seem to have the first idea about business. I know our esteemed leader has had great problems when it comes to paying for a long block booking as they have no credit card facility. The place seems to have run far more smoothly under the Fusion contract. The irony is that in terms of price it was very competitive and avoided the need for membership. Not sure they knew how to market themselves though. For now we are having to relocate to Crystal Palace.

[lyons2]

Yes I agree, but just to allow this to happen without taking Lord Harris and his cronies to task is not acceptable. Harris East Dulwich Girls School has two specialism?s Sports and Enterprise. It does not take a genius to consider using this as a real case study and turning a dwindling business into a thriving one.

Or as I suspect the Head Teacher does not want to share her facilities with the community, something she inherited and that was working fine and providing for the needs in the community, and as you say you have to travel to London Borough of Bromley (Crystal palace) to find suitable alternatives, Shame on you Lord Harris and Southwark Council for not stepping in.

[Huggers]

and what of the swimming pool, built by funds raised by parents and now languishing and decaying? surely that could have been used for the community and make a profit as well?

[intexasatthe moment]

aah ,the swimming pool.

Yes ,mamy moons ago I was one of those people who helped raise funds .

Remember ,not quite so many moons ago ,helping with local primary schools swimming classes there .

Does anyone know why management of sports facilities pass from Fusion to Harris in first place ?

[Fuschia]

When it became an academy it would have taken ownership of facilities previously owned by Southwark Council. Is it not the case that an academy is required to guarantee continuation of community access? Presumably not.

[peeps]

It has not helped his company Carpet Right has posted profit warnings again

[intexasatthe moment]

Fusion managed the facilities for a while after it became an Academy though , I wonder why that arrangement changed ?

Wonder what Harris put in their expression of interest when they were going through the process of becoming an Academy .

They normally refer to intent to be part of community etc ,might see if I can track it down on line .

[lyons2]

The swimming was closed due to lack of maintenance; it has now gone and has been built over with a new building for the school. Swimming pools are extremely expensive to run, but with a little enterprise skill, and commitment the whole thing could have remained a very valuable facility for the whole community.

Many dual use sports facilities operate during the school day alongside school use. Even better if the Head Teacher and of course Lord Harris, really want to make a statement for the local community by sharing and giving something back to us all.

[JohnL]

South London Press noticed

http://www.southlondonpress.co.uk/news.cfm?id=38151&headline=East Dulwich academy slammed for banning public from sports centre

Not tit for tat about not being allowed to use Peckham Rye is it ?

[DJKillaQueen]

I think it's just a case of poor management and marketting. I didn't even know it had floodlit pitches. I can think of several local football teams that would be interested in hiring those.

[neilson99]

I moved into Colyton Road in April and rarely head down that end the road. I had no idea there was a sports centre there open to the public, a little marketing and promotion might not be a bad a idea.

[binary_star]

JohnL Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> South London Press noticed

Yeh, think the OP had something to do with that.

I had no idea the facilities were open to the public either. Then, I always seem to hear about such things on the announcement of their closure!

[lyons2]

I think you can see that lack of management; marketing and real commitment to share great facilities that Southwark paid for will go. Please write to your local Councillors or to the Head Teacher Jane Fletcher complaining, and maybe just maybe they will reconsider their actions

[will dex]

I used to use the sports facilities regularly - then they simply stopped answering the phone!!! literally 9 times out of 10 when i called no-one answered, so i was unable to book facilities!!! so went elsewhere... - not suprised they couldnt make any money!!!

[east-of-the-Rye]

a couple of points:

- I agree that there was no effort to market what was going on - i went in a few weeks ago looking for activities for a teenager - the member of staff only had an incomplete sheet with some of the classes, clubs etc on it, no contact details and generally a bit vague,

- when the tennis courts in Peckham Rye Park were turned into the skate park (not a bad thing in itself,) we were assured we could use the courts at the Sports Centre at the school

- the planning application for the work currently taking place at Harris Girls did include demolishing the pool. I wrote in objecting, mentioning of course that it is a sports specialist college, and also that Dulwich Leisure Centre, the nearest place that the girls could go fo lessons, is already busy with school groups. No sensible answer...

[Medley]

I live five mins from this place and had no idea it had facilities. And a pool!!!!!

'had' being the operative tense.

Marvellous.

Very interesting about the contributions by the likes of Harris to academies. Typical public sector getting the rubbish end of the deal again.

[elloriac]

I too live very close - we just moved to the area in Feb. I noticed the fusion sign outside and had made vague attempts to find out what facilities were available in the hopes that they had at least some running machines to keep me running through the dark winter nights, but fusion had stopped managing it and other attempts to find out about the sports centre failed, so I just gave up.

Can't see how they can claim lack of demand when they make it so hard for anyone to find out about it!

[murphy]

The information I heard was that they were losing money under Fusion so decided to run things themselves. However they brought in inexperienced staff, got rid of the ability to pay by switch or credit card and stopped any marketing or promotion of the facilities. With very little notice they then tried to double hire rates and then more recently announced closure with similar lack of notice.

If you were the suspicious type you might suspect that this was a deliberate policy to discourage groups using the facility and gradually wind the operation down. They can then "prove" that there is no real demand and that in this time of austerity they had no option but to close the facility to the public.

If it is true that public money was spent in return for community access I hope that our local politicians investigate a little further.

[intexasatthe moment]

I wonder how Harris were loosing money when the facilities were managed by Fusion ?

Were they paying Fusion to manage it and not getting enough return to cover the management fee ?

But surely Lord Harris would have enough business acumen not to have entered into an arrangement that looked like a loss maker ? ( or whatever the correct term is ).

And I really wonder what terms/conditions went with the sports facilities when Harris were given the lease to the school .

Are the sports facilities integral to the school or a seperate building ?

I guess it wouldn't have been feasible for Southwark to have retained the facilities ,letting them out for school and public use .