Staging more events like last year’s BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend festival could spell the end of sport on Hackney Marshes, residents and sports fans have warned, after the council applied to hold “major public events” at the iconic park every summer until 2017.
Residents in other parts of Hackney are also worried they will be affected by the fall out, as sport is relocated from the Marshes. The Mabley Green Users Group has vowed to fight a new £600k all-weather football which is set to be built on its patch, and which it said that nobody wants.
Damian Rafferty, chairman of the Mabley Green Users Group, said: “The council is basically saying ‘we’re going to take the whole of Hackney Marsh for the summer, but don’t worry we’re building a pitch round the corner’. It’s a joke, they couldn’t have done it any worse, nobody wants the pitch.”
Thousands of people attended the Hackney Weekender at the Marshes last June, with millions more around the globe watching performances by artists such as Jay-Z and Rihanna on television.
But nearly nine months later, cricket and football players who regularly use the Marshes say the grass hasn’t recovered.
There are still trenches and large holes where trucks moved heavy equipment for the show and 10 football pitches at the Marshes – which the council terms ‘the spiritual home of Sunday league football’ – are still unplayable.
Johnnie Walker, chairman of Hackney & Leyton Sunday Football League, has been attending matches on the Marshes since 1948.
He said: “This is the worse I can remember it. If the council wants to encourage sports on the Marshes, they’re going a very funny way about it. They don’t want sports, they’re using [the Marshes] as a cash cow.”
As well as large parts of the park being closed for four weeks around the time of the festival, upsetting nature lovers, the cricketers also had their season cut short in mid-May, and hundreds of thousands of pounds were wasted.
The council was forced to fork out for repairs to the tune of £195k after the BBC, which organised the event, was deemed to bear no responsibility for what was considered “normal wear and tear.”
Cricketers are furious that a £750k grant they received from the English Cricket Board will have been wasted if festivals continue to ruin the grass and make the Marshes unplayable. The Football Federation has also chosen to withhold £1.25m of a £2.6m grant to build new changing rooms on the Marshes until the turf is mended.
Despite the wide ranging furore, Tim Evans from the Hackney Marshes User Group is not confident concerns will be listened to. He said: “The response will only ‘inform’ the application. Even if we get 100 per cent opposition, I get the impression these events might well still go ahead.”
The council has said it is committed to developing sport on the Marshes, pledging to build new changing rooms on the North marsh as part of an £18m development programme.
Mayor Jules Pipe said: “The Hackney Weekend shows there is a demand and interest for such use of the Marshes. If any future events were proposed they would be carefully considered and would have to meet strict criteria to ensure the land was returned to good condition for sports use as quickly as possible.”
