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Boxing club in fight for new home

Thursday, 15 May 2008

A boxing club on the Southside say they are fighting for survival as their premises face demolition.
Members of Monkstown Boxing Club have been given no guarantee by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council that they will be adequately accommodated in a new community facility after their current base in a derelict block of flats is knocked down.
Temporarily housed in a condemned derelict flat block in Mounttown, Monkstown, the club provides the area with a much-needed sporting amenity. Catering for up to 70 children and running three nights a week, it is a hive of activity for the youth of the area.
The club is currently housed at the top of a four storey block of flats and has just one toilet. There are a number of broken windows and the bad weather in the winter makes training very hard for the young members. The boxing ring, training area and locker rooms are squeezed into what were once two flats that have been knocked into one.

The club was temporally moved into the block as part of the much-needed development of the area. After a campaign by the local community the flats in Fitzgerald Park were finally demolished after standing empty for almost five years.
One member of the club, Darren Lawlor, said the council had not been in contact with the club about the move to the new Meadowlands Resource Centre in Mounttown.
“We haven’t had a guarantee that they are going to give us a room,” he said. “I think they are building a multi-purpose sports hall as far as I know but we are a boxing club and we need specific equipment such as a ring.
“It’s a great club and everything that we put into it goes back into the community,” he added. “But we only have one toilet for everyone and both girls and boys have to share it. We have no showers. At the end of the day it is keeping kids away from drugs in the community and no one is turned away.”
Local Sinn Féin activist, Darragh Burton, has called on the council to engage with the local community about the proposals for the new centre.
“Although the council has agreed to build a community centre as part of the redevelopment the boxing club has so far been left in the cold,” he said.
“Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council must step in here and provide this community with the facilities it is crying out for. A home must be provided for Monkstown Boxing Club.”
Meanwhile, Marion White, the project officer of the local Community Development Project (CDP) who works in the Mounttown Resource Centre, said she feared they would not be guaranteed a say in the running of the new centre, as the council is to appoint a management board to operate the facility.
She said the CDP wanted to enter into a legal agreement with the county council to run the centre but claimed the local authority is refusing to engage them on the matter. She also said the council has refused to give the CDP a lease in Meadowlands.
“The problem is that the council want to control everything,” she said. “They want a lot of the funding that had been gathered in the name of the community signed over to them without any real security for the community.
“They are saying we are guaranteed access to the new centre but as it stands we have to take their word and work in good faith with them. We want all the groups there to be given some security of tenure.”
She added: “We also want the council to enter into an agreement with us that the facility can be used for community purposes.”
In a statement the council said it was their policy that a management board would oversee all community facilities under a licence from the council.
“This board will have broad based community representation, for example in the Meadowlands case, the Mountwood CDP will be represented on the management board as well as other community interests,” the council stated.
“It is planned to put this board in place by September in order for the board to have the opportunity for training, and to look at policy development, health and safety issues and general facilities management.”
They added that it was “envisaged” that the centre would be a base for a wide range of activities that would include the boxing club.

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