Programme selection

White Hart Lane Community Sports Centre was originally built in the early 1970s and primarily served residents from the Woodside ward in Haringey, which is in the 11% most deprived wards in the country.

The project has resurfaced the dilapidated 11-a-side pitch with a third generation artificial grass and rubber crumb surface, and provided four floodlit tennis court surfaces providing high quality facilities for local use. The project acts as a focal point for a number of local sports clubs, community groups, primary and secondary schools. It aims to increase community cohesion, reduce crime and anti-social behaviour and to benefit local residents.

Consultation was carried out with a range of key organisations including School Sports Co-ordinators, National and local Governing Bodies of Sport, London Active Partnership, Positive Futures and Haringey Sports Development.

The launch

The new football pitch was opened in November 2005 when Tottenham Hotspur Football Club manager, Martin Jol, joined players Michael Carrick and Michael Brown at the first ever Barclays Spaces for Sports "flagship" site launch. The event gave guests the opportunity to admire a completely refurbished 11-a-side artificial turf pitch, 4 re-surfaced tennis courts and new floodlights.

Cllr Charles Adje, Leader of Haringey Council, attended the launch and said: "This is a fantastic boost for Haringey. It will help engage local people in a diverse range of activities and introduce them to new sports. We look forward to working with our community partners to ensure the continued growth of the site. I would like to thank and congratulate Tottenham Hotspur, Barclays and the Football Foundation for making this happen."

Use of the facilities

Tottenham Hotspur FC act as the primary delivery agent for the programme of mini soccer activities, girls and women’s football development and disability football development through the clubs FITC (Football in the Community) programme. The club has a clear focus to challenge barriers to participation and ensure inclusion.

Programmes run by the club at the site involve other partner organisations including:

• Haringey Mencap to provide football coaching and personal development opportunities to a group of children with Aspergers Syndrome who live in the borough
• Haringey safer neighbourhoods teams to run a ‘community league’ for young people at risk of crime
• The Lawn Tennis Association, Haringey Tennis and Middlesex LTA to establish a City Tennis Club at the centre to provide tennis coaching to young people and adults. The local Positive Futures group have time allocated to them to use the facilities to deliver their activities, which have made a significant difference to the project, as the project officer Errol Brown explains. 'We used to use a little gym at the youth club or whatever we could find... But it wasn’t very nice. It never lasted long because the kids didn’t like using that with the risk of injuries and so on. With these new facilities it’s so popular, it’s unbelievable.'

Other programmes run at the site include:

• Mini soccer opportunities and school holiday programmes for both boys and girls.

Sustainability

Tottenham used their development fund to employ a full time Development Officer. Following the success of this role, the task of delivering 13 hours of usage at the site each week for programmes managed by Tottenham Hotspur FC Foundation (THFCF) has been mainstreamed into the role of the THFCF Community Development Officer. This means the site is also used for a broad programme of activity that links to other partner agencies including Positive Futures and Kickz. The site operates as a girls football development centre and on Tuesday evenings the club have established a community league for local teams. These activities make the site accessible to lots of people and engage the local community to ensure long term sustainability of the site.

THFCF also work alongside other sports clubs in the area to make sure that local children are getting involved and that they have a choice about how they use the site. This has worked well resulting in a strong varied programme of activities are ranging from football to urban rugby to tennis.

The relationship between Haringey Local Authority and Tottenham Hotspurs FC has flourished and regular meetings are now held ensuring that both parties can effectively work together to increase the quantity and quality of delivery of sport in the borough.