A new future for Portobello Green Fitness Club

March 22, 2011

The Inn on the Green had been running for the last 6 years on the top floor of our community gym, Portobello Green Fitness Club. Operating as an arts-friendly bar and community venue, a host of different events have run in its multi-use performance and entertainment space, from cinema to cabaret; and from private parties to live recordings of up and coming bands. Live music, performed by both local acts and national and international performers, has been core to the venue’s programme.

Over that six years lots of good things had happened at Inn on the Green, but gradually it has become more and more difficult for the commercial bar side of the operation to remain viable, in addition this area of the building had been deteriorating and in need of work. Essentially the enterprise had been reliant on the economics of alcohol sales, and this had become unsustainable as a seven-day-a-week operation in this sort of venue.

The current rental agreement ended in May and since then we have currently been working on plans to develop the site into a ‘Portobello Green hub’ to link in more closely with Portobello Green Fitness Club below. But we will also draw on the expertise of  Dave and Tina, who ran the Inn on the Green bar and venue, to maintain an arts and entertainment venue on the site.

We know that many residents of Kensington & Chelsea experience stark inequalities which  impact upon their well-being and we aim to develop this new community  hub to serve North Kensington by focusing on access to services which address these needs.

The hub will take a collaborative approach to delivering and supporting a wide range of well-being initiatives. We hope local residents will be able to use it as a one-stop-shop for tailored advice and to signpost them to a broad range of well-being services. The aim is for it to become a key local venue for well-being and fitness activities.

In recent years our health training and well-being has been expanding as we integrate our work in health training more closely with other services that the Trust runs for local people. Our successful new Health Trainers project, run with the local NHS, has completed its first year and been re-commissioned for a further two years. Over 500 local people used the services of our Health Trainer team during its first year. And as a result the new hub will include consultation and office space for some of our health promotion staff.

In addition to the well-being concept and the venue, we hope to be able to deliver a healthy, affordable community café on the site. This is a bold idea, involving a number of different groups, including the past operators of Inn on the Green. It is itself an experiment, and it is going to take a while to find the best balance, but the plans are to build up something new which can keep the best bits of what is currently available, but add ingredients that will widen the appeal, and give added benefits to the local community, so we hope you will support those involved in this exciting new venture.

Above all, we want to emphasise that we intend this to be a real local partnership and our approach is based upon that idea. So the Trust is keen to involve any interested local organisations who can make a contribution in this partnership, because we know that it will work best with that buy-in, enthusiasm and expertise; and we would like to encourage community groups, voluntary organisations and statutory bodies working to improve health and wellbeing in our local area to join us.