sport
Community Sports Facilities Shoreditch: New Pitch
How Shoreditch residents built their own all-weather sports pitch through grassroots fundraising, opening new community access after council budget cuts.
How we reported this
The Shoreditch Community Sports Trust opened applications this week for its new all-weather pitch on Calvert Avenue, funded entirely through local donations and small grants rather than central government money.
Residents in the area have watched council budgets for leisure shrink since 2023, with the nearest public courts at Shoreditch Park often booked weeks ahead. The trust formed in late 2024 after a group of parents and coaches met at the Arnold Circus bandstand and decided to raise money themselves for equipment and surface upgrades. Their first target was a strip of land behind the old fire station on Calvert Avenue, which the council agreed to lease at a peppercorn rent last March.
Two venues already running sessions
Training has already started at the Hoxton Youth Hub on Hoxton Street, where volunteers run five-a-side games every Tuesday evening for under-16s. The same coaches use the hard court at the Redchurch Street community garden on Thursday nights for basketball drills. Both sites charge £2 per session and keep the money in a shared account that paid for the first batch of portable goals now stored at Calvert Avenue.
Local records show 184 young people registered across those two sites by the end of June. The trust has set a target of 300 registrations once the new pitch opens in September, with priority given to families living within a half-mile radius of Old Street roundabout.
Numbers behind the push
Council data released in May recorded a 19 percent rise in weekly sports participation among 11-to-18-year-olds in the Shoreditch ward compared with the same month in 2024. Average cost per session across the trust sites remains £2, well below the £7.50 charged at larger leisure centres on Kingsland Road. The Calvert Avenue build itself cost £178,000, covered by 62 separate donations averaging £2,870 each plus a £45,000 grant from the London Marathon Charitable Trust paid out in April.
People who want to use the new pitch can register online from 15 July through the trust site or collect paper forms at the counter inside the Hoxton Youth Hub. Slots will run from 4pm to 9pm on weekdays and all day at weekends, with the first block of bookings released on 1 August.