In early summer 2014 the England and Wales Cricket Board and the Essex Cricket Board appointed us to produce a cricket facilities strategy for Newham in east London.
At present the borough has very few cricket pitches or practice facilities despite there being a huge interest in the game. Much of this comes from the south asian communities who live and work in the borough. At present much of this demand is exported out of the borough or cricketers have to make us of informal areas in parks and open spaces. In addition to traditional, white clothing cricket other formats of the game such as tapeball cricket and Kwik cricket are played all over Newham with teams often being drawn from local businesses and groups of friends rather than tradtionally formed clubs.
The shortage of space in the inner city means that the strategy recommendations include a concentration on artificial turf strips as well as the development of grass wickets.