My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Jack
Last Name
Harrison
Pronouns
He/Him
Email address
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Lead Organisation Name
Bankside Open Spaces Trust (BOST)
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
2000
Initiative Title
Reimagining The Marlborough Sports Garden
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
https://bost.org.uk/. https://www.linkedin.com/company/bankside-open-spaces-trust. https://www.facebook.com/BanksideOpenSpacesTrust
Initiative Stage
Established (You’ve successfully passed early phases and have a plan for the future. Your venture has been in existence for 6 years and above)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Health & Fitness
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
By re-imagining the Marlborough Sports Garden (MSG); an open space in North Southwark, we will improve the life chances and access to opportunities that enable people - within communities that faces significant health inequalities and where the twin challenges of poverty and obesity are impacting on children and young people in particular - to increase their health and wellbeing through climate resilient participation, in sport, physical activities and play.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
BOST works with climate vulnerable communities in urban SE1, an area under constant threat of development. Established in 2000, we remain a grassroots organisation with local community members making up the majority of our trustee board and a proportion of our staff team. We provide community programmes that enhance health and wellbeing and manage and maintain 16 parks, gardens, historic and open spaces. Many local households are overcrowded and there is a severe deficiency of open green space locally. GLA data indicates all households within our area have a deficiency of access to public green space, and that 71% of dwellings are without private or shared gardens. Southwark has some of the highest levels of child obesity in England, with 38% of children in our ward (Borough and Bankside) estimated to be obese at Year 6. 31% of the ward population lives in social housing, 12% are considered income deprived and the child poverty rate is 43%. Almost 37% of the ward population identifies as BAME. We know that people’s climate vulnerability locally is increased by their level of social vulnerability and that the main drivers include age and health, the availability of green space and levels of inequality and income. Climate change impacts, specifically hotter weather and extreme heat, exacerbate this inequity and present a challenge to the meaningful, healthy and safe participation of vulnerable people in physical activities during hot weather. In response, we are reimagining the MSG as an accessible climate resilient, healthy and equitable place with both indoor and outdoor spaces - that will inspire and enable the participation of a greater number and wider range of children and young people, adults as well as older adults, in sport, play and physical activity.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
Nearly 55,000 people use the MSG but despite being free to use, consultation with local groups, each facing different challenges, made us aware that MSG can sometimes feel unwelcoming to marginalised or vulnerable users, or those lacking in confidence or skills in sports and physical activities (our aha moment). This is mainly due to a lack of indoor space provision, including permanent toilets, changing areas or spaces for people to meet, but also a lack of shaded and sheltered places for activities, in our outdoor space. Since the 40oC temperatures registered in July 2022 the need for adapting MSG has become even more evident. Reimagining the MSG will enable us to address many of these barriers to participation and allow us to significantly increase the scope of our offer so that more people facing disadvantage feel comfortable and able to access activities on site. Informed by guidance from civic and community partners, community consultation with local people including with young people about their leisure, health and wellbeing needs, the most transformational aspect of our vision is the Community Hub building. Designed to be sustainable, climate resilient and accessible, the Community Hub will provide much needed indoor facilities including: flexible sports-based studio space for fitness classes, sensory play and facilitated closed sessions for vulnerable groups, changing rooms, toilets on all floors, and room for the community to meet. This will enable us to support all of our users to remain active, all year-round, despite extreme weather events, whilst providing the spaces needed for all of our participants to feel comfortable using the MSG. Once the Community Hub is completed, we will be able to offer year-round, climate resilient programming and space.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
All of our work is built around the core principle of public engagement through collaboration and consultation. This approach enables us to understand and respond to particular profiles of local need and to work to mitigate problems exacerbated by specific local conditions which contribute to health inequalities and fewer opportunities to be active. We regularly gather feedback from programme participants to help us understand our audiences better. For example when BOST staff visited schools to gather direct feedback about MSG activities, pupils expressed a desire for opportunities for free play alongside structured, coached activities. In response, we schedule organised sessions Tuesday - Thursday leaving Mondays and Fridays available for unstructured free play. This project was informed initially by ongoing evaluation of the programmes we run at MSG and regular active consultation with local people e.g. through our quarterly MSG community forum group. We subsequently undertook a structured consultation process to assist reimagining plans, in order to involve the community at the earliest possible stage of project planning and development. We achieved this by implementing a multi-stage community engagement strategy, liaising separately with Southwark Council Officers and Cabinet Members, and consulting with a wide range of stakeholders, current and non-current site users, community groups and activities providers. Consultation highlighted that the MSG is a well-loved, well-used space, but the community wanted more from it, including toilets and changing areas, increased greening and all weather activities by providing shaded areas and indoor places to meet. The designs that resulted from this consultation have won two awards and are shortlisted for a third.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
“Under BOST’s careful and committed stewardship, the MSG has become a much valued and much used community asset. Local people, particularly young people are actively engaged in a variety of community programmes and activities at the site, which help improve their health and wellbeing” Tara Quinn Head of Parks and Natural Environment Southwark Council Currently, 40% of the MSG’s total service user population are from ethnic minority backgrounds who are more likely to face challenges to health, wellbeing and life chances. To reach these groups, we partner with local organisations to offer free afterschool coaching, holiday multisport camps and weekend activities. In 2023/24, we had 272 registered participants for our free afterschool sessions, which ran for five days per week during term time for children aged 4 – 11. Evaluation of the impact of our after-school programmes overall, showed participants all saw improvements in levels of regular exercise, sports skills, healthy eating, friendships, self-esteem, motivation, and pride. During the summer holidays we allocate at least 48 free places per camp to children from low-income families who might otherwise struggle to attend, participants are nominated by local schools. Last year our holiday camps welcomed 132 participants, 54% of the participants were girls. We were also able to ensure 19 children with special educational needs and/or disabilities could participate by funding teaching assistants from three local schools to attend and support the children. By reimagining MSG and delivering an associated programme of engagement and awareness raising activities we aim to increase numbers using the space overall from 55,000 users p.a. to approx. 75, 000 and for our capacity for weekly provision to increase by 500.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Building on BOST’s long-standing commitment to improving health and wellbeing through greener urban spaces, the project embeds sustainable thinking from early design through to long-term operation, offering a replicable model for community sport in London At the heart of both the designs for the redevelopment and the related programme of learning and engagement activities that form part of the project, are the principles of accessibility and inclusion; sustainable construction and resilience to climate change. The scheme adopts a robust circular economy framework, the award winning community led designs prioritise reclaimed and low-carbon materials—such as reused bricks, reclaimed hardwood timber and reclaimed steel—supported by materials passports and end-of-life planning to enable disassembly and reuse. Planned measures include solar PV generation, enhanced biodiversity planting, green façades and a new green roof. These features have been shaped through community consultation where residents and users highlighted the need for shaded seating in response to high on-site summer temperatures. The design therefore incorporates greening to provide natural shade and cooling. All planting and green infrastructure will also help to reduce local pollution and improve air quality. These measures are reinforced by BOST’s “Zero Avoidable Plastics” commitments (the project is a case study for the Zap project) and on-site practices focused on dismantlable fixings, material sorting and local reuse wherever feasible. In tandem, we have partnered with Shade the UK (CIC) to help us deliver engagement and awareness raising activities to improve understanding amongst MSG staff, children, young people and their adults, including teachers, of how to stay healthy in the heat.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
As a prominent, free-to-access sports hub serving ten local primary schools and thousands of residents, MSG integrates sustainability into daily experience. It shows how low-carbon design, biodiversity enhancement and resource-efficient practice can become accessible, achievable parts of community sport. Our operating model means that income generated from commercial space hires, helps us to subsidise our community programmes to make them free, or affordable with an allocation of free places to those who need them to ensure equity of access The new spaces created through the project, will strengthen delivery of our social enterprise operating model and provide new facilities for hire, which will generate incremental commercial income, supporting overheads and enabling our subsidised community programmes for local vulnerable groups including children, young people, older adults and people with disabilities or other underlying conditions, At present after-school programmes and school holiday activities run April – Oct we will expand these activities to take place indoors when the weather is unsuitable. We also anticipate that the addition of activities enabled by the indoor spaces will help attract more women to take part in sport and become active. We estimate that once completed, the improved site, will be able to provide sport and recreational opportunities to nearly 4,000 children and young people across the year. This includes being able to provide for over 750 young people on a weekly basis through an expanded programme of after-school clubs and weekend activities. As well as extending our provision and support for children and young people who have disabilities/additional needs including behavioural issues a group we have identified as underrepresented at MSG.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Ultimate responsibility for the project rests with BOST’s board of trustees, led by Chairman Tim Woods. Tim is a practising architect and is also Chair of Trustees at Southwark Playhouse and a Trustee of the Cinema Museum. BOST’s executive team is led by CEO, Charlotte Gilsenan, who has a wealth of experience in the charity sector with 14 years at senior management level. BOST’s Head of Sport and Development, Jack Harrison, who has a detailed operational knowledge of the the MSG and the needs of the local community, is leading the project and reports directly to Charlotte. BOST will be responsible for and oversee the capital redevelopment of the Community Hub and has commissioned a multi-disciplined project team including architects Cullinan Studios and sustainability specialists Yes Make to deliver the capital works. Wherever possible, we engage local organisations to support programme and project delivery. We will deliver this project in the same way and continue to work closely with local councils and sports providers to deliver activities on site. Shade the UK, will be responsible for delivering engagement and awareness raising activities on staying healthy in the heat through sports, physical activities and play. “Surrey Cricket Foundation is pleased to support this initiative because it will strengthen our ongoing delivery at Marlborough Sports Garden, ensuring children and young people can continue to access inclusive sport and physical activity in the context of a changing climate. By combining climate-resilient design with education and activation sessions delivered in partnership with Shade the UK, the project will enhance the long-term accessibility, safety and impact of the space.” Gavin Reynolds Head of London Programmes Surrey Cricket Foundation
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
Planning permission and all necessary consents have been granted for the project. RIBA Stage 4 designs were completed in August last year, and following a tender process and detailed quality and commercial assessments, including contractor interviews, we have now selected and appointed a preferred contractor, representing a significant milestone for the project and placing us in a strong position to move towards delivery. We are planning a phased approach to delivery, which has the support of Southwark Council as landowner and principal funder, as well as our trustees. The design team is currently completing a Design Review Period to fully define a Phase One package that can be delivered broadly within our existing funding envelope, while remaining committed to our circular economy principles. This approach will ensure that BOST and Marlborough Sports Garden users are able to make meaningful use of the building and new amenities from handover. Phase One – the construction of the Community Hub and associated works is planned to commence in April this year, with an est. overall construction programme of c44 weeks. Phase Two will complete the final fit-out of the building and the remaining soft and hard landscaping to central and western areas of the MSG. To date, we have secured a mix of funding from trusts and foundations, corporate partners and social investment, totalling c£3.3m In addition, we are actively pursuing a pipeline of approximately £435,000 through grants from trusts and foundations and are increasing our focus on other income streams, including individual giving and events. Fundraising will continue throughout Phase One, with the intention that subject to achieving the necessary funding, Phase Two can be initiated sequentially and follow without delay.
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
In parallel to fundraising BOST is actively working with its design team to identify opportunities for value engineering the project, with the largest potential being through the use of recycled materials. We are working with Yes Make a regenerative design and build practice saving high quality materials from going to waste, for reuse in public spaces with and for local people in London. During the capacity building period, BOST will work with Yes Make, our design team and preferred contractor Roof, to identify suitable materials and finalise the total project budget and the full scope of both phases. We also want to work with Shade the UK to pilot and co-design a 4-week programme of engagement and awareness raising activities on staying healthy in the heat in sustainable ways through sports. This will be a natural progression of an overheating analysis of the MSG site previously undertaken by Shade the UK, with the intention to use MSG as an exemplar pilot for how other community sports spaces in London could be heat healthy, climate resilient and sustainable themselves. Shade the UK will deliver presentations and run workshops/activities on site at the MSG, or in other spaces owned by BOST, with service users, local people and local schools covering topics such as: the impacts of heat on the human body, how that impact changes with different age groups/levels of activity/underlying health issues, what are heat stress, heat exhaustion and heatstroke etc. Shade envisage that a total of 3-4 days would be required to prepare and deliver on this pilot programme of engagement and awareness raising. This would equate to £3,250 + VAT in total. The remaining funds up to £10,000 would be used to cover BOST’s design team costs during the capacity building programme.
