You signed. Now we need one more thing.
Over the last six weeks, more than 2,500 of you have signed our petition to save Golden Lane Leisure Centre. For a single community health facility. In a city of just 9,000 residents. That is extraordinary, and it matters more than you know.
Your signature sent a message that could not be ignored - that this community, and the people who care about it, will not accept the quiet closure of a vital public facility without a fight. You made this campaign visible. You gave us the foundation to do everything that followed.
Here is where things stand - and what your signature helped make possible.
Since the closure was announced we have held a public meeting, demonstrated outside the Guildhall, lobbied all 125 elected members of the Court of Common Council, and attended the Community and Children’s Services Committee - where we won a vote to reopen the decision on the refurbishment design, and secured a commitment to a new round of community engagement that the Corporation had previously failed to deliver.
We also obtained and published the Corporation’s own RIBA Stage 2 report - the architectural and business planning document for the refurbishment - which residents had repeatedly been told was private and could not be shared. It wasn’t true. The report reveals that the financial modelling used to justify the preferred design option was flawed, and that the Corporation’s own risk register flagged the loss of the sports hall as a high-likelihood source of community objection. We are sharing this evidence because you deserve to know what decisions are being made about your community facility - and why.
Eleven elected members signed a formal motion to reopen the centre and bring it back before the full Court of Common Council - the highest decision-making body of the City of London Corporation, where all 125 elected members sit together. It is the equivalent of a full council meeting: the place where the most significant decisions are debated and determined by the people elected to represent residents.
Last week, the City of London Corporation blocked that motion from even being debated - ruling it unlawful on the grounds that it might cost money. The Corporation’s surplus this year is £30.4 million. Officers and the Lady Mayor stopped it from reaching the chamber at all. One hundred and twenty-five elected members were prevented from even discussing it.
Meanwhile the centre remains closed - and is deteriorating. Rob Hardy, Technical Facilities Officer at Swim England, has warned that the Corporation’s failure to cover the pool is causing active structural damage to the pool hall through the evaporation and condensation of chlorinated water. Left unaddressed, this risks making the eventual refurbishment prohibitively expensive. We have written to the Corporation demanding urgent action. We are still waiting for a substantive response.
This is not over. The next six weeks are the most important of this entire campaign. A formal community engagement on the refurbishment is coming in early June. A key committee meets on 30 June. Legal proceedings are underway through Leigh Day solicitors. Every day the centre stays closed adds to the pressure on the Corporation to act.
But we need resources to keep fighting. Legal costs. Campaign coordination. Making sure every vulnerable resident - cancer patients, SEND families, older people, Exercise on Referral users - has their voice properly heard in the engagement process ahead.
In just three days, our core supporters have raised £2,500 - 10% of our target. Now we’re coming to you.
👉 BACK US NOW: crowdfunder.co.uk/p/savegoldenlane
Every contribution counts. So does sharing this with one person who cares about community sport, public health, or democratic accountability in London.
Stay connected with us:
📸 Instagram: @savegoldenlane
🐦 X: @savegolden_lane
📩 Newsletter: save-golden-lane.beehiiv.com
You signed because you believed this mattered. It still does. More than ever.
Thank you.
Rajesh Thind and Paul Drinkwater
Save Golden Lane Leisure Centre