Funding for Hackney’s renowned Pedro Club to continue, council confirms

The Pedro Club was founded in 1929. Image: Google

Hackney Council has confirmed it will carry on funding an iconic youth club in Homerton – as it prepares the borough for reduced investment in local services.

At Monday’s cabinet meeting, finance chief Cllr Robert Chapman presented the Town Hall’s plans for the Pedro Club on Rushmore Road.

It follows the publication of the borough’s overall financial position report (OFP), which painted a stark picture of Hackney’s accounts for the coming year.

Cllr Chapman said: “Despite the financial situation set out in the OFP, the wellbeing and welfare of our residents is our absolute priority.

“I am delighted to announce funding for the children’s centre to make sure it stays in use and is fit for the future.”

Up to £1.5m more has been allocated for capital works and improvements to the club, taken from the Town Hall’s voluntary and charity sector budget.

The investment is subject to the Pedro securing a further £1m from Sport England, along with other funding sources.

The club’s premises require “significant capital investment to ensure they are fit for purpose”, and it also needs to “strengthen its organisational and financial capacity”, the report added.

Established in 1929 by Baroness Elliot of Harwood, the Pedro Club has provided children and young adults with access to various services for nearly a century.

It offers sports and exercise, amateur boxing, life skills training, mentoring and learning activities, a summer camp, and more.

Former super middleweight boxing champion James Cook MBE came to the Pedro’s rescue in 2003 when he took over as manager.

Having joined the club in the 1990s, Cook was working with young people to “get them off the street”.

“I told the council they couldn’t have [the club] because it’s not theirs, so they gave me a little fight and then gave me £3,000 to get the accounts up to date, and from there basically we’ve been trying to keep it open,” he told I Love Chatsworth Road magazine in 2012.

The Pedro features in short film Take The Punch. Photograph: Don Travis

Sitting in King’s Park ward, it has relied on extra support for decades—and notably received £5,000 from a fundraiser led by Dame Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Richard Burton.

It is believed that Taylor’s childhood friendship with Baroness Elliott prompted the contribution.

The first episode of the reality TV show The Secret Millionaire also took place at the Pedro in 2006, which saw contestant Ben Way donate £50,000.

Over a decade later, the hub launched a crowdfunder for a further £50,000 to prevent its closure.

Mayor Caroline Woodley said the continued investment into the Pedro Club was proof that Hackney Council was “still delivering things that will really change people’s lives”, despite budget pressures.

Cllr Chapman recently warned that the Town Hall was facing a £36m shortfall over the next financial year.

At Monday’s meeting, he revised that figure up to just shy of £37m.

He said: “The situation we’re in reflects the chronic underfunding that we’ve suffered in the last 14 years under the previous government.

“We’re undoubtedly in a difficult situation and will be taking tough measures.

“We’ve done our best to propose measures that will begin the process of bringing our budget into balance, and have made every effort to protect our services as best we can.

“In the longer term, we’re making our case to government for proper funding and measures to help with housing and the social care crisis.”

The decision to fund the Pedro comes amid legal action against the council by a local campaign group over the planned closures of some children’s centres in the borough.

Fernbank and Sebright centres are at risk of being shut by August 2025 due to a restructuring of nursery provision for children between the age of six months and five years.

But parents and campaigners have brought a case against the council on the grounds that the consultation process for the proposed closures was “unfair” and “unlawful”.

Hackney Council has rejected the accusations.

In August, one of the group’s leaders, Natalie Aguilera, said it would “fight tooth and nail to keep valuable services—particularly the subsidised childcare—available to disadvantaged families, for which they are a lifeline”.

The judicial review will start next Wednesday at the Royal Courts of Justice.