The Slade Green branch of a national funding partnership claim its plans to invest £200,000 in a new community hub are being blocked.

Slade Green Big Local wants to install five cabins on a patch of waste ground in Whitehall Lane to provide a meeting place and a range of services for residents.

The 9m by 3m interconnected structures would include a kitchen area, sensory room for disabled children, music studio, computer suite and a main meeting room.

But the group, which manages more than £1 million of lottery funding for the area, is running into resistance from landowners Orbit South housing association.

Big Local coordinator Mel Hudson, 40, told News Shopper: "Orbit just doesn’t want to know.

"They say they don’t want to encourage anti-social behaviour at the site which just seems a bit bizarre because the whole reason for the hub would be to stop behaviour like that and engage young people.

“The area is a hotspot for crime and anti-social behaviour – I know because I live there.

“The hub would try and help this.” Miss Hudson, who lives round the corner in Lincoln Road, believes the hub would reach residents who do not currently use the nearby Howbury Centre.

The new building at the community centre in Slade Green Road is set to open this autumn following a major regeneration project.

Miss Hudson said: "The people we want to reach don’t use the Howbury Centre now anyway.

"We have got an investment we want to make in the area but no one wants to talk to us about it."

Catherine Charles, head of housing at Orbit South, said: "While we support the community hub in theory, there is a history of anti-social behaviour from when there were temporary cabins located there once before.

"We need to discuss how Big Local intends to deal with any potential anti-social behaviour after hours and a more robust strategy for keeping the area clean and litter free."