London 2012 Olympics: Shooters Hill go-ahead has a sting in the tail

London 2012’s legacy gurus were no doubt relieved when the new riding school at Shooters Hill, just up the road from Greenwich Park, got through Council planning despite shrill local opposition last month.

There was a major planning policy principle why the “legacy” riding school should not have been approved – it is on Metropolitan Open Land.  Opponents’ pleas for a call-in by the Secretary of State are already being considered.

Planning policy aside, though, anyone should be pleased by initiatives to further opportunities for riding in London. Or any city.  It was Winston Churchill who rightly said “the best thing for the inside of a man is the outside of a horse.” Apart from health and recreational benefits for all ages, communing with a horse – who has a quite different affect on one’s soul to that of a dog or a cat –  is now a proven and widely practiced therapy for the disabled and for children and adults with behavioural problems resulting from a disadvantaged upbringing, rural or urban.

There is ample evidence that inner-city children always embrace the apparently alien concept of riding, given half a chance. This appetite is already there, irrespective of how many thousands of London children actually do get tickets to see elite riders in action at Greenwich Park next year.

Family-run riding schools right across the UK have closed in droves in the past 15 years, not through lack of custom but because of the escalating cost of animal feeds, insurance and punishing business rates. State subsidised agricultural colleges with integrated riding enterprises have also stolen some traditional riding school business on the career training side.

There are 70 commercial riding schools in Greater London. A major problem is optimising hours of operation. Inevitably, weekends are by far the busiest. Riding has now entered some school curricula, but for many enterprises, dark evenings make winter weekdays a write-off.  The capacity of any riding school will always be capped by the fact the horse is a sentient being, not a piece of gymnasium equipment that can work 24-7. So the official HOOF legacy project has been quietly trying to extend weekday riding with the provision of covered and/or floodlit outdoor arenas at existing riding schools.

The Duchess of Cornwall has just opened new HOOF-subsidised permanent facilities at Brixton’s Ebony Horse Club, a legend in its own lifetime which was founded in 1996 to provide life skills and motivation to children on the Moorlands estate by a far-sighted resident, Ros Spearing. Also this week, Olympic dressage rider Emile Faurie added 20 families in Vauxhall to the 10,000 urban dwellers across Britain whose riding has been enabled by his own charitable foundation since 2006. But a substantial increase in participation in London can only be achieved by the provision of more horses – ergo, more stables. Sure, Shooters Hill is not a direct piece of legacy from London 2012. But  if guilt about the  tens of millions being thrown at the temporary Greenwich  operation is behind plans to build something  worthwhile in south London and find a way –with its College-related  subsidy – to make it operationally viable, then so what?

For London 2012 itself, though, the Shooters Hill planning decision and possible call-in has a sting in the tail. Whichever way it drops, LOCOG cannot now be sure when construction will begin or end and if there is any chance it will be a building site next summer, it’s out of commission during the Games.

Greenwich Park has well recorded constraints on space and access, so the mega lorries that transport elite equine athletes around the globe cannot easily drop them off at the main stable area. During the July test event, the undeveloped Shooters Hill site was used as a staging post, with horses transferring to a smaller vehicle for the final leg.  Riders were happy with both the principle and the efficiency of its execution.  As recently as two months ago, the company co-ordinating worldwide Olympic horse transport clearly thought this was still the deal for London 2012, and advised an International Equestrian Federation seminar as such. Greenwich Council planners obviously thought so too, as it was flagged up in their recommendation to committee. But it has now emerged that LOCOG has decided not to use Shooters Hill for horse transfer or anything else and, to date, no alternative has been confirmed.

It seems ironic that when so many logistical challenges have been presented by Greenwich Park, the not insignificant process of getting 200-odd horses on site is suddenly back on the “to do” list. Let us hope there are not too many more instances of two steps forward, but one back.