A SPORTS club with 400 members has applied for permission to replace dressing rooms torched by firebugs over two years ago.
Vandals partially gutted the wooden pavilion at Wembley Cricket Club, based opposite Vale Farm Sports Centre in Watford Road, Wembley, in March 2012 and now the organisation, which leases the ground from Brent Council, wishes to install new changing facilities formed out of three shipping containers bolted together.
Club chairman John Haskell said: “It was really bad. One of the two dressing rooms was burned out.
“It was a council building and was insured by them.
“They were going to repair it and after a month or so there was more structural damage and the council's insurers wouldn’t repair it. Things dragged on and in 2013 we started making plans to replace it.
“It’s been vandalised further over the last few years and and we demolished it about three months ago but it means there's no scoreboard or shelter down there.”
The third and fourth men’s teams and junior teams used to use the changing rooms - at least 100 players - and the club has had to find extra room in its main clubhouse to accommodate visitng adult players, while parents have brought their children to the ground already in their cricket whites.
The cricket club’s parent Wembley Sports Association has applied to the council for planning permission for the new container-based changing rooms and if approved, the structure could be up for the end of July for use during the remaining few months of the cricket season.
The design and access statement lodged with the council by the association says: “For the past two seasons, the club's changing facilities for its 3rd and 4th and junior teams have been unacceptable.
“Not only safety and hygiene were unacceptable but the leagues that the teams play in are now questioning their acceptability.
“Both Brent Council's parks department and Wembley Sports Association are reluctant to build another wooden structure, because of the continued risk of arson and vandalism.
“The last two years have seen the investigation of a more secure, vandal-proof and environmentally friendly structure.”
These containers would cost £32,000, with £18,000 from an insurance pay-out, £12,000 from the Wembley Stadium National Trust and the remainder being raised by the club.
