16 May - Tom Daley opens the new Marlborough Sports Garden
Friday 18 May 2018
We were delighted and honoured this week to host a local Olympian, Tom Daley, at the recently refurbished Marlborough Sports Garden, when he came to officially open the site and declare it available once again for all the community to use.
The site had been closed to the public while extensive works were carried out to fill in World War II shelter tunnels underneath the site, and then to create new and improved sports pitches and facilities for a wide variety of games, from table-tennis to beach volleyball, netball and football
Speaking about the Marlborough, Tom Daley said, “This area of London doesn’t have much outdoor space so I am delighted to see this new sporting facility up and running and hope local school children get a huge amount of use and enjoyment from it. It’s really important that young people have places like this to play and exercise in. Well done BOST for redeveloping the Marlborough Sports Garden and providing this fantastic space for everyone.”
The event was a chance to celebrate with 100's of local children and families, who got active and tried out a variety of sports including tag-rugby, football, basketball, Wacky Races, Ultimate Frisbee and giant games. We also launched our after-school facilities for 5-11 year olds run by local company Sports City.
The Sports Garden provides a brilliant resource for adults too offering locals, residents and workers alike, somewhere to get out of the office at lunchtime or de-stress after work by playing some sport or just relaxing outside with friends.
The three courts- sand, football and netball -are being managed at lunchtimes and evenings by 5aside.org and Netbusters who are taking bookings for private hire as well running leagues. More information below.
Kim Leadbeater, sister of the late Jo Cox (and Ambassador for the Jo Cox Foundation), also came along to underline the importance of sport and its power to bring communities together and launched the forthcoming nationwide initiative, The Great Get Together. One of the biggest of these events in the country will be taking place in the Marlborough Sports Garden and surrounding streets of Bankside on Sunday 24 June and organised by Bankside Open Spaces Trust.
The redevelopment of the Marlborough Sports Garden was made possible by funding from Southwark Council, London Marathon Charitable Trust, The Worshipful Company of Tallow Chandlers, Team London Bridge, and others.
