The following letter, by Catherine McGuinness, Chairman of
Hampstead Heath Management Committee, appeared in Camden
New Journal on 25 November 2004.
Hampstead Heath is one of London's most popular and famous open
spaces, with millions of visitors each year. The Corporation
of London is very proud to run it, and to maintain it to a level
where it has just received a coveted "Green Flag" award for the 6th
year running.
Why, then, have local and national papers been reporting in
recent weeks that dire financial crisis has struck and cherished
traditions are to be axed?
Fortunately these reports are exaggerated, and we are still well
funded. We receive an annual grant from the Corporation of
more than £5.5 million, and an additional contribution from a trust
fund set up in 1989. Indeed the Corporation's grant to the
Heath grew by a staggering 350% between April 1989 to March 2003,
six times faster than inflation over the same period.
But the Corporation grant – generous though it is – has to
service not only a large and ecologically complex site, but also a
wide range of sporting and recreational facilities.
None of these activities are cheap; some are extremely
expensive. Costs have been growing over the years, while the
Corporation has not been able to continue indefinitely increasing
its expenditure. As a result maintaining all our activities
on the Heath at the current level has produced an overspend in our
budget of nearly £200,000 for two successive years, and this is
projected to continue. We have already been bailed out with
money from the budgets of the Corporation's other open
spaces, and this cannot continue, as those places are as dearly
loved and important to their users as the Heath is to
us.
Bringing our expenditure back within budget involves difficult
decisions. We need to look at the different and often
competing needs of all the Heath's users, and to strike a fair and
responsible balance.
And in achieving that balance we need to look at those areas of
our services which, frankly, are currently neglected or
underdeveloped. Any parent visiting the Parliament Hill
playground, for example, will confirm that it badly needs
refurbishment, and this at a time when this paper carries repeated
reports that children on nearby estates have nowhere to play.
The Golders Hill Park childrens’ zoo is half-built and half-full;
and our information centre is now scarcely operating because we
cannot afford to replace departing staff. And where are our
facilities for teenagers? Our tennis courts are wonderful and
very well-used, but think how popular a basketball court would
be.
So what are we to do?
Increasing our charges is part of the answer. Of course,
most of our facilities have to be subsidised if they are to be
affordable to the ordinary user. And of course a robust and
appropriate concessions policy needs to be in place to help those
on lower incomes. But subsidies must be considered and
focussed in order to provide value for money to the community at
large. We cannot spend hundreds of thousands of pounds to
benefit only a small number of users if more popular facilities or
wider sections of the community go without.
Charges will cover only part of our shortfall and we also have
to consider cuts in services.
For example, we cannot afford our combined education/information
centre in its present form without making more drastic cuts to
services such as the maintenance and conservation of the Heath
itself. The centre, which has brought thousands of children
from local schools and children from our rich and diverse community
on to the Heath, will probably have to close.
And here I come to the three ponds. These are of course a
wonderful and cherished tradition and part of what makes the Heath
special. But they are also far and away our most expensive
recreational facility. Around £500k - half a million
pounds - is for example spent each year on lifeguarding alone,
leaving aside the costs of water quality testing and control,
equipment and maintenance costs, and the hopefully irregular
consultancy and legal costs we have had to incur for them over the
past year, and they do not begin to pay for themselves as swimming
there is currently free. To put this spending in context, the
Parliament Hill playground could be refurbished for a capital cost
of only around 200k; the Golders Hill Park Childrens’ zoo could be
considerably improved with around £100k; and the information centre
reopened for around an extra £100k a year. Of course, each
pond has its own special character: that we fully accept. But
they are all within a very small area, and all within an easy walk
of the Lido. How can we justify this level of spending on a
single activity when other facilities and user groups face
cuts?
Management Committee, then, faces difficult decisions at its
meeting on 24th January. And in making those decisions it
wants to hear what the community needs and values most.
Options will be put to the Heath's Consultative Committee at its
meeting next Monday. They will be circulated to local
councillors and other elected representatives. They will be
available for inspection on our website or by visiting
Guildhall. And we welcome comments and views from all.
Catherine McGuinness can be contacted by
email or
by writing to the Corporation of London, Guildhall, London EC2P
2EJ.
Consultative Committee will be held at 7.00pm on Monday 29
November in The William Ellis School Hall, Highgate Road, London
NW5 1RN.
Hampstead Heath section of the Corporation of London
website
Article in Camden New Journal online
edition