Kent County Cricket Club’s letter to the Kentish Gazette

The full copy of letter written to Kentish Gazette published in edited form on 18 December 2014:

In last week’s Kentish Gazette [December 11] it was reported that a planning application by Kent County Cricket Club had been turned down by the City Council’s planning committee.

During the committee meeting and in the subsequent report it was inferred that the Club is offering little of community value.

This is far from the case. Notwithstanding the merits of the planning application the Club would like to clarify the benefit to the local community that the Club provides.

This year the Club attracted nearly 80,000 visitors to cricket and has created economic value to the local and regional economy estimated at more than £10m. Furthermore the Club employs 63 full-time staff and 142 part-time staff.

Kent Cricket runs extensive community coaching programmes. In 2014 2,183 hours of coaching was delivered in 148 schools (primary and secondary), we ran 40 schools cricket festivals that saw 520 teams compete and coached a total of 41,867 children in Kent.

12,500 posters were given to schools children in Kent and we hosted 1,500 school children from 50 schools free tickets to Schools Day Out matches. We also strengthened club cricket by training 216 new cricket coaches, 37 new groundsman and 99 new umpires and scorers.

The Club runs the vibrant St Lawrence Clinic; 12,000 sessions across physiotherapy, osteopathy, massage, podiatry, pilates, yoga and fitness classes were completed in 2014. In addition, 5,800 physio appointments at Estuary View (Whitstable) and Spire (Hythe), were met for both NHS and private patients.

We have other fantastic facilities in Canterbury: A sports centre that provides a venue for countless teams to play netball, six-a-side football and indoor cricket leagues.

This is also hired to local schools and clubs for facilities that they don’t have. A conference and banqueting facility is used by nearly 100 local organisations in the year, including Kent County Council, NHS (including regular blood collection service) and Canterbury City Council.

The “ugly supermarket” mentioned in the article is actually a much valued convenience store serving thousands of people in South Canterbury every week and we now have a café open year around which celebrates local produce and has, in a short time, built a loyal following.

Finally, to underline our commitment to being an integral part of the Canterbury scene we would draw readers attention to the Club hosting the Spiegeltent as part of the Canterbury Festival, putting on the biggest community fireworks event on 5 November in the City, running a Community Open Day attended by 3,000, supporting local charities (including Demelza, Battle of Britain Memorial Trust and Hope for Life, the Canterbury based mobile chemotherapy unit) and hosting the Anglican Church against Vatican City cricket match at the end of the season, which generated global interest.

Far from offering little of community value Kent County Cricket Club stands at the heart of both Canterbury and Kent life.

George M Kennedy CBE, Chairman

Jamie Clifford, Chief Executive Officer,

Kent County Cricket Club