Campaigners appeal for help to save ‘lifeline’ Gellings Riding School in Knowsley

Campaigners have appealed for help from the local community in a bid to save a much-loved riding school in Knowsley.

Gellings Riding School is under threat of closure after plans to sell the land it’s on for development.

A meeting is being held at the school in School Lane, Prescot, tomorrow and those battling to save it have urged people from the area to go along to give their support to the campaign and help raise awareness.

Keith Hackett, who is one of those leading the fight to save Gellings and its livery yard, said:

“This school and livery offers facilities to a considerable number of people who are committed to their sport and for whom the sport creates a huge number of positives in their lives, which go with them forever.

“And I include myself in that.”

And he adds: “This land is also a valuable piece of green land and woodlands, used by cyclists and walkers as well as the riders, and which is home to a variety of wildlife.

“We need help and support to save it. It’s too valuable to lose to housing.”

Gellings Riding School has been a ‘cornerstone’ of the community for around 40 years, offering young people – and older ones – the chance to learn, and continue, to ride, and is on what is one of the last remaining stretches of publicly accessible open land between Liverpool and Knowsley.

“And it’s more than a recreational facility,” explains Keith. “It is a lifeline to the youth and residents of the area where such opportunities are scarce.

“Gellings is one of the last remaining riding schools in Merseyside as the region has seen many similar establishments close due to land development pressures.”

Gellings Equestrian Centre which comprises the riding school and the livery currently provides lessons and facilities for around 600 people every week – and there is a long waiting list – and it’s also home to around 70 horses and ponies who would be displaced, causing them distress says Keith, if it were to close.

The issue has arisen with the two companies who own the land the business is on putting it up for sale for development.

Now in order to save the business, campaigners are hoping to buy part of the land themselves and save it for now, and for future generations.

Keith says: “Gellings pays £36,000 rent a year for land the business is on, seven acres of which is now up for sale for £2.5million.

“We want to buy the land to keep the business in place.”

Campaigners have launched an application to the Government’s Community Ownership Fund, which provides grants for community facilities that are threatened by their sale – that includes things like village shops, pubs, and sports centres, ‘and livery and equestrian yards’! – for £2m.

“They can be bought in a social enterprise, and we have a stage one application successfully through to receive grant aid from that fund. In the first instance we need the time to be able to make that application, and we also need Gellings to be designated as an Asset of Community Value which we are in the process of asking the parish council to do.”

He continues: “At the meeting tomorrow at 1pm we have parish councillors and Knowsley councillors, we have the Friends of Croxteth Park coming and various environmental groups because of the biodiversity issues the sale of the raises, and we will ask them for support, before going to MPs and beyond for theirs.

“Anyone who wants to come along to help to support us is welcome.

“There will be a series of further meetings where we can talk to people who have a genuine interest about what’s going on. Part of that is because the Community Ownership Fund requires any applicant to demonstrate that they are part of a community and this is us demonstrating our community – not just to the Community Fund but to the community we are a part of.

“If we can’t command support from the community we don’t deserve to be here – but we do, and we know passionately we do.”

Should the group be successful in getting £2m from the Fund, they are confident that they can raise £1m to cover the extra £500,000 to buy the land and pay for costs like stamp duty and legal fees.

“We need support to help people ride, learn, grow, connect with nature, and more; we need to save this.

“And we have until January 30 to put in our application.”