Football, volleyball and badminton players who are calling for a rethink of the Sobell Leisure Centre trampoline park plans

• AS one of the footballers who will be affected, I’m disappointed at the failure of Islington Council and GLL to consider the workable proposals we have painstakingly researched that would allow indoor five-a-side football to be retained at the Sobell Centre alongside plans for the trampoline park (Footballers to be bounced out of leisure centre, May 26).

There is no clear reason why a compromise cannot be discussed and struck. GLL and council representatives agreed to consider our proposals at a meeting held in April with representatives of football groups, but they have since reneged on this commitment.

As long-standing loyal users of the Sobell (my team alone has played there for 25 years and invested more than £105,000 in the centre), our views should be respected and properly considered.

Instead, GLL and council responses, extolling generally the purported benefits of the trampoline-focused conversion, have ignored our proposals to avoid football being squeezed out.

The great thing about indoor football at the Sobell is a cushioned wooden floor kind on joints, a decent pitch length allowing midfield play and the fact that the centre is exactly that – a place where you meet other sports people, pick up new players and make new friends from all backgrounds.

The so-called alternatives being imposed by GLL and the council do not have the same benefits or provide an equivalent ‘home’.

A wider issue is whether this project is about sporting diversity or really about money as leaked councillor comments seem to suggest.

One understands the financial constraints facing the council because of central government cuts, but flashing pound signs should not lead the council to neglect its statutory duties to consult properly with all centre users on the planned changes.

No proper consultation process has ever taken place. If it had, GLL and the council might have saved both themselves and us a lot of trouble. Instead, the project is being imposed from on high, despite reports of GLL contracts with local governments elsewhere leading to a loss of sporting facilities.

We simply do not understand why GLL and the council cannot listen and engage in a proper conversation. It does not say much either for customer service or for the responsiveness of local government.

JON BARNES, N16