Since the 1990s, Knebworth Park Cricket Club has been trying to find a fit-for-purpose home that enables it to secure the crucial grants it needs to provide for a modern membership and current legislation. We have been pleased to continue to support the club during these fifteen years – giving it time and extra financial support – while it has examined and consulted on every possibility. There are very few options in this commercial world, and no perfect solution – every field and open space presents negatives – but if it keeps the club within our community, we have been pleased to weigh the negatives against the positives, and to consider the benefits for the wider community.
The one viable option the club has identified is the Jubliee Park field, opposite the Lytton Arms pub. Jubilee Park is already a recreational space – and, as a site adjoining the Village Green, it is a place where we can continue to help the club by looking to donate the land to KHEPT, the community charity that already owns the Lytton Arms and is the majority shareholder of the Village Green management company. Rent is a modern reality, but having a landlord that is a local charity with community priorities would give the club an extra chance of survival, and its neighbours extra access to monitoring the terms of its lease and day to day activity. If the club does not survive, I suspect the pub will be next. A pub needs “traffic” in the good sense of the word, to drink its real ale and eat its hot food. A community needs activity, it needs young people, and sometimes it needs to look beyond the negatives and focus on the wider positives. The long term consequences may be worse.
Here’s a community positive. Our Village Open Day returns on Sunday 23rd March, which means free entrance to Knebworth Park, Gardens and House for all residents of Knebworth village. Please enter by St Mary’s Gate and bring proof that you live in the village… and do bear in mind, as you pass through the white gate, that the cricket club on your right does not exist but for the support of its community. It will be gone next year unless you support it.
Henry Lytton Cobbold
www.knebworthhouse.com