The Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has, contrary to his comments, caused ice rink plans to flounder.

He demands proof of funding before he will grant planning permission, yet no funding can be negotiated without planning permission approved by him.

Had Lambeth got planning permission prior to March 31 they would be included in Sport England's audit and guaranteed some funding towards the new rink and leisure centre.

But because of the mayor's intransigence and rejection of the scheme on March 12, no application for funding could be made before the deadline.

An application will not be considered until much later in the year and none committed until next summer at the earliest. The ice rink may not be able to survive that long.

Someone needs to lay the blame firmly at the mayor's door for putting insurmountable obstacles in the way.

At the rink this week there was a meeting where leisure consultants PMP and Lambeth said lottery funding was assured. Who are they trying to convince, us or themselves?

Thinking they may know something I don't, I rang John Hadley of Sport England for an update and this is his reply.

The PMP application is very important. Registering a requirement is the first rung on the ladder to getting funding.

The rink will automatically have a high priority, but the crunch is as follows all funding is blocked while the new Sport England chairman gets an audit of full information on all grants, commitments and applications in the pipeline as of March 31.

This will take them approximately six months, so that is the end of September at the earliest. No new applications will be included in this audit only current claims are needed to regionalise this data first. The restructuring of processes and documentation will take a long time.

Sport England underlines the need to keep the ice rink viable during this time period. Any failure of plant, ice surface or drop in usage will severely affect its future success for receiving funding.

Can this Catch-22 be overcome? Are any other funding opportunities available from other sources? Let the rink know!

TREVOR HUTTON

via email

April 30, 2003 11:00