Class act as Primrose Hill kicks out soccer

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Westminster Council's planning committee this week proudly announced that it had "thrown out" a scheme to build nine five-a-side football pitches on the north side of Regent's Park.

The Royal Parks (prop: The Queen) wanted to lay the plastic pitches because they say the area north of the park contains some of the most sports-deprived council estates in Britain. The park authorities spent three years working up a strategy with local schools and clubs. They naturally discovered that the local lads and lasses were keener to have a kickabout than join the now-closed Regent's Park Golf and Tennis School to indulge in more genteel pursuits.

So, football it was. The pitches were to be operated seven days a week between 9am and 10.30pm by private sports company Goals. They would rent out the fenced pitches for between £35 and £60 an hour. A clubhouse and licensed bar were also planned on the four-acre site as part of the £2.1 million scheme.

The Cranford ladies would be proud of the Primrose Hill response. Young men! Playing football! On plastic pitches! Under floodlights! Being encouraged to drink! Can't they play golf or tennis? As soon as the plans were reveals the Friends of Regent's Park and Primrose Hill mobilised. Westminster Council received 670 letters of objection, 10 petitions containing a total of 2300 signatures, and 1465 signed postcards (it's Primrose Hill remember). The protesters included nice BBC broadcaster Sue MacGregor, nimby columnist Sir Simon Jenkins and flailing horseracing pundit John McCririck.

The Royal Parks never stood a chance really after admitting that 68 trees would have to be cut down, thus depriving local bats and tawny owls of nesting spots. (Aren't there a few more trees in the park?)

Nobody, of course, mouthed what was no doubt the real fear - young men and women, quite possibly of the wrong class, streaming in and out of the park until 10.30 at night, perhaps inflamed by the devil drink from that bar.