Pictured at Tuesday’s meeting with GLL and the council, back row from left: Lev Titov, a UCL skater who uses Sobell to train; Luke Pierre of Sobell Sabres; Harry Bishop of Sobell Sabres; Phil Edwards, also of Sobell Sabres; Gary Dodds, an ice hockey coach at multiple London clubs; Alison Millar, member of the figure skating team; Pietro of London Yetis club; Kevin Beza, a Sobell Slappers game coordinator; and Charlie Neville of Sobell Slappers. Front row: Ola Sendecka, a Sobell figure-skating club member; Jonathan Duff, who is also a Sobell figure skating club member; and Karen Coombes, a Sobel figure-skating coach

USERS are calling for an iconic ice rink to be restored amid plans to turn it into a soft play area.

The Sobell Centre’s ice rink, which first opened in 1973, was destroyed by flooding in August from a burst Thames Water pipe in Hornsey Road, Holloway.

After nine months of closure, Islington Council and Greenwich Leisure Limited (GLL), who run the centre in partnership, are proposing to install a new “mega adventure” soft play area instead of bringing back the ice.

GLL say the rink had made a loss of £250,000 the year before the flood, and that it had a relatively low average attendance of 475 people per week.

On Tuesday evening, GLL and the council held a meeting in the centre with users of the rink to discuss their proposals – with opponents questioning the figures.

Karen Coombes, 58, who began using the rink when she was eight years old, and became a figure-skating coach there when she was 22, said: “The usage number has got to be the biggest joke of all. There’s no mechanism to tell the centre how many people you have on the ice. I have 65 members of my skating club who skate once a week, and then there’s the hockey team. Then there’s 35 people per ‘learn to skate’ class. On top of that you’ve got the birthday parties – so, where did they pluck that number from?”

The Sobell Centre’s ice rink, which first opened in 1973, was closed in August after being damaged by flooding

She added: “The rink gives people a chance who don’t have that much money to learn. Over the years, I’ve produced about 16 skating coaches that have all had an opportunity to get a job out of the lessons they paid for, and four of them have gotten to travel abroad. These are opportunities they wouldn’t have had without the rink.”

GLL have said they will conduct a “health check” on their attendance numbers.

Alison Millar, a member of Sobell’s figure-skating team, said: “I’m a woman of a certain age and in perimenopause. I have very limited opportunities for group physical activities … Ice skating is something you can do in your perimenopause – if you get a hot flush, you’re in the perfect environment.”

She added: “As a result of ice skating, I’m much stronger physically and mentally than I was, which is a good thing because I’m fighting breast cancer.”

The final decision on the rink’s future will be made by the council’s corporate director for finances alongside health chief, Cllr Nurullah Turan. But users want the final decision to be made by all members in the council chamber.

Jonathan Duff, a Sobell figure-skater, said: “Something as important as this to as many people in the community should be debated at full council. This feels like something that’s about more than what one official wants. It’s about what the people of Islington want, and the council should take note of that.”

Paul Lister, head of service at GLL, said financially “the centre is in hospital. It’s on life support”, as he explained why the rink would not be coming back.

Andrew Bedford, Islington Council’s assistant director for green space and leisure said: “This is something we’re having to consider with regret. We’re saying that the ice rink is unlikely to happen, and that we’re strongly minded not to have it reinstated. We can’t preclude somebody coming up with some incredible solution that we haven’t thought of, and we’re not closing the door on that. We’re not trying to put a popularity vote out there, we’re not asking if you want an ice rink or the soft play and to vote for it.”

A spokesperson for the council said: “The recommendation to executive is to delegate authority for the decision to the relevant director and executive member. The executive will decide whether to adopt that recommendation or not when they meet to discuss the full report next week.

“The decision is prop­osed to be made under delegated authority for two reasons – because there are time limitations related to the insurance claim, and so the Sobell Centre can be brought fully back into commun­ity use without further delay. The proposed process is fully in line with the council’s constitution.”