Clissold House “could close down” warns User Group head, as financial hole widens

Caroline Millar in front of Clissold House, which she said may have to close to the public in a “worst case scenario” in two years time because of a massive deficit

Clissold House, the historic mansion which was restored and opened to the public around five years ago using millions from the Heritage Lottery Fund, is now haemorrhaging £100,000 annually, the chair of the Stoke Newington park’s influential user group has revealed.

Caroline Millar from Clissold Park User Group (CPUG) also predicted Hackney Council would need to defy critics opposed to holding lucrative private events in parks and give the go ahead for many more money-making exercises to take place in order to cover costs involved in maintaining local green space.

“The worst case scenario, if Clissold House doesn’t start breaking even in two years, is that it could close down,” she added. “We can’t keep pouring money down the drain.”

The building is open to the public, and money for maintaining it is generated through the cafe and weddings which are held there, Millar said, as well as through some private events like classes – though many of these are in effect being subsidised by the Town Hall.

Millar spoke out at the same time as Councillor Feryal Demirci, the Hackney politician in charge of parks, addressed members of the London Assembly investigating whether councils across the city can continue to properly manage green space in the face of government cuts.

It was “no secret” boroughs were suffering because of cuts and local authorities needed to work with user groups and, potentially, private developers to get the best out of their parks, Cllr Demirci said.

She added: “We’ll get the blame if there’s a problem.”

Monetising parks

Unlike health and social care, maintaining parks is not a statutory duty.

Leonie Cooper, chair of the London Assembly’s Environment Committee – which is currently looking into the future of parks – has said councils are currently “wrestling” with the question of if, and how best, to better monetise their parks given budgetary pressure.

Hackney Council’s attempt to hold more private events in Springfield Park was recently criticised as being akin to “privatisation”.

Occasions on which open spaces have been fenced off for ticket-only festivals like last year’s Friends Fest in Haggerston Park have also led to complaints.

Three years ago the council said it was banning music gigs on Hackney Marshes following an outcry.

According to a recent report by the Heritage Lottery Fund, parks in the capital face “the risk of rapid decline” if councils do not develop “innovative mixed model approaches to funding”.

Assembly members Caroline Russell, Leonie Cooper and Jennette Arnold with Paula Yassime from St Mary’s Secret Garden on a visit to the Homerton green space earlier this month

“There’s quite a lot of intensive looking after that goes into a park,” Leonie Cooper told the Hackney Citizen on a tour of St Mary’s Secret Garden in Haggerston earlier this month. “You need to inspect playgrounds, for example, on a daily basis.

“You can’t allow children to play on play equipment that hasn’t been inspected… With the central government cuts to local authority budgets, a lot of the time the thing that hits the headlines is people stuck on trolleys and being unable to come into hospital because people can’t come out the other end, because local authority budgets are squeezed for social care.

“But the money spent on running parks is somewhere in the mix for local authorities as well – and no one is talking about adding an extra 4.99 per cent on the council tax to help with the cost of parks.”

‘Not a single penny’

Millar, who is stepping down from her role in CPUG in March, highlighted how last month’s Christmas market, which sparked charges of “exclusivity” after parents were charged £7.50 so their children could see Santa, had helped raise money to restore swings in the playground.

She issued a plea for people concerned about increasing numbers of private events to appreciate the “new financial reality”.

“When the Christmas market was here [in the park] we had a small funfair with rides in it, and people were very upset that it cost £3 or £4 to put their child on a ride,” she said.

“I could understand that. They think because they’ve come into a park it should be free – but one of the reasons we had that Christmas market was to raise some money to support the park so we could actually do things like restoring the swings, which are free and are there all year round.”

Springfield Park: The council’s plans for generating revenue have had a frosty welcome from some

Millar added: “The casual visitor to the park brings in no money whatsoever, not a single penny.

“Every time you go into the leisure centre, say, money comes in.

“Three million people a year use this park. The toilets are used all the time. That’s fine, but for example in New York they introduced a tax where you had to pay $1 if you had a window that faced Central Park, and it actually brought in a significant amount of money.

“I’m not suggesting we do that here – I don’t think it would go down well – but we have to think of ways of generating just a little bit of money from everyone who uses the park, or everyone who can afford to pay.

“Is it reasonable to run events in the park, where better off people, who live round here, will spend significant amounts of money here in the park rather than in the beer shop on Church Street, if that means there’s then a bit of cash for the park?”

Animals

In her interview with the Hackney Citizen Millar also gave fresh details about what lies in store for the dwindling number of inhabitants of the small zoo in Clissold Park.

A Freedom of Information request by the Citizen recently revealed Hackney Council spent more than £600 buying exotic butterflies and moths for the butterfly dome in 2015 – a year before it closed after it was found not to be suitable for non-native species.

Millar said the dome would be reopening in the near future as a home for native lepidoptera.

She also confirmed all the chickens had now passed away and would not be replaced.

Captive birds in the aviary are also unlikely to be replaced as they progressively die over the coming years, she added.

A recent biodiversity discussion paper written by interim manager of Clissold Park Laurence Pinturault includes a list of native British wildlife species which will be encouraged to return to the park “through appropriate actions and management”.

“Priority species” include the slow worm – a kind of snake-like lizard – as well as the stag beetle and various species of bat.