Youngsters from Highbury Football School who opposed the Barnard Park revamp

• ANDREW Bedford insults the people of Islington when he states “the overwhelming majority of responses” support his plans to reduce the size of the sports field at Barnard Park by 80 per cent (Park’s pitch is open to all, May 19).

They don’t. His consultation process has been flawed and distorted from the start. Mr Bedford’s crowing of the support base for his plans invites a proper response.

The truth is that the council never intended to properly consider upgrading the existing sports pitch in its current footprint; the option was never on the table, even at the start of its initial 2014 consultation.

At this time only four options were presented to the people. All of them were for a reduced pitch size; none was for an upgrade of the existing footprint. And almost a third of respondents told the council so. But the council ignored this feedback and carried on regardless.

Time and time again the council went back to the same people who objected to its plans and each time these objectors were either ignored or the consultation data were spun in favour of a reduced pitch size.

Such was the blinkered view of the consultation process that even letters signed by 150 schoolchildren asking the council to reconsider its plans were, according to a suggestion by one councillor to one of our team, conveniently thrown in the bin.

To state publicly, as he does now, that “nearly 80 per cent of responses we received” were in favour of his proposals is an insult to these people.

We have added up the total of number of people who have ever responded positively to Mr Bedford’s plans. We calculate his support base to be just shy of 300. The 300 number is only so because we have counted responses across three consultations as if each had come from a separate individual. Of course, they didn’t.

If we assume, as seems far more likely, that Friends of Barnard Park, whom Mr Bedford’s plans so eagerly appease, were repeat responders to his whistle, the best number we can possibly get to is a meagre 126 supporters.

Already our #SaveOurSportsPitch petition at www.change.org has amassed more than 500 signatories, of which more than 300 are from residents local to Barnard Park. That is already three times Mr Bedford’s support base, and this number is growing each day. His “overwhelming majority” is a figment of his imagination.

A plan to refurbish the existing facilities at their current size needs a proper consultation. As we approach the coming general election and the council elections next year, the Labour-run council needs no better reminder that Barnard Park is a crucible of whether they really are “for the many, not the few”.

STEPHEN GRIFFITHS, TONTZ HOVIS, HILARY KNIGHTS, IAN NELTHORPE, DAN QUINN, MARK RANSFORD, MARGARET ROWE, DANIEL SANDFORD, JOHN SCHLESINGER, MARK SMITH AND PETER SOGBODJOR
#SaveOurSportsPitch
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