Greenwich Council has agreed to meet campaigners who want to save the borough’s Olympic legacy equestrian centre from development.
The “ray of light” came after Greenwich refused permission for the site in Shooters Hill to be designated an asset of community value – even though one of the conditions set for the original centre was that it would be used by the community.
Now Majid Rahman, the council’s cabinet member for planning and development, has agreed to meet campaigners who have been working up plans to take on the centre, which closed last year after its operator, North Kent College, pulled out.
The council-owned centre was opened by the Princess Royal in 2013 following Greenwich Park’s hosting of equestrian events in the London Olympics. It was run by Hadlow College – later taken over by North Kent – and also hosted community riding courses. Chris Roberts, the council leader at the time, pledged that the centre would “introduce thousands of London children to the thrill of horse riding”.
But in November last year the Labour council’s cabinet agreed to sell the centre after less than a minute’s discussion. Anthony Okereke, the council leader, has suggested that flats could be built on the site, which is surrounded by a working farm.
And in correspondence seen by The Greenwich Wire, an application to list the centre as an asset of community value was refused last month by the same council that opened it with a fanfare 12 years ago, claiming that the centre was unviable and that it had not ”furthered the social wellbeing or social interest of the local community”.
Now the council has offered an olive branch to Tao Baker, one of the campaigners hoping to take over the centre, and agreed to a meeting. Rahman will meet Baker and others interested in the site in the next few days, The Greenwich Wire understands.
Barry Gray, of the Woodlands Farm Trust, which is next door to the centre, said the council’s refusal to consider the application for asset of community value status – which would enable local groups to submit their own bids for the site – was “rubbish” and “deficient in law in ten points”.
Gray said that the council had decided to sell the centre in a “wild-eyed panic”.
“I would think most boroughs in London would be very proud to have such a thing in their area, and they would celebrate it,” he said.
Gray said campaigners had been on the “warpath”, but the offer of a meeting was “some good news — a ray of sunshine”.
“Over spring and summer, we’ve seen several high-ranking officials from national funding organisations, and we’ve just been invited to make a stage one application to the Esmée Fairburn Foundation, which is the third largest funder in the UK,” he said.
“They have a specific interest in enlarging the farm along certain lines, including the equestrian centre.”
“We also are in contact with an organisation called Farms for City Children, which was founded by Michael Morpurgo. The idea there is to use the 20-room Victorian farmhouse on the site for residential holidays for deprived children. So we are doing a lot.
“We are so pleased that at last the hostility is dying down and we will hopefully come to an agreement about the future of the site, which benefits the whole community.”
Gray told councillors that by law, local groups must be given time to prepare bids – the point that former councillor Ivis Williams was threatened with suspension by the Labour Party for making six months ago.
Williams resigned from the council, prompting a by-election which the Greens’ Tamasin Rhymes won after the Labour candidate, Jummy Dawodu, mocked the equestrian centre campaign in letters to residents. Rhymes told the council that together, the equestrian centre and farm were “an absolute gem” and that it would be a “crushing blow” to lose the centre.
Matt Hartley, the Conservative leader, said the campaigners had faced “extreme hostility” from the council. “I think it is hard to think of a site in this borough that is more deserving of the status of asset of community value than both the farm and the equestrian centre,” he said.
“There’s a huge well of goodwill from residents to make this work. All they need is time.”
Rahman said that it was a shame to hear the word “hostility” used but that the meeting would be “an opportunity to discuss and understand more” about the campaigners’ plans.
The British Equestrian Foundation told The Greenwich Wire that it was “disappointed” that the council had refused to allow the centre to become an asset of community value.
Mandana Mehran Pour, who heads its participation and development team, said: “While we understand that listing does not guarantee the future use of the site as an equestrian facility, it is currently the only statutory mechanism available to pause a sale and allow the community time to prepare a credible bid. Refusing the listing removes that opportunity, despite clear evidence that the site has historically served the community and could do so again.
“While we respect the process followed, we do not agree with the conclusion that the site is unviable. Our own research and national evidence base show that this is not the case and the property might have been mismanaged than unviable.
‘We continue to believe that Greenwich Equestrian Centre is a unique community asset with potential to contribute to the council’s priorities around health, physical activity, education, and social cohesion. Rather than seeing the site’s history as a reason to close it, we see it as a reason to design a more robust model, potentially through partnership approaches that could combine equestrian activity with complementary uses to ensure long-term sustainability.”
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