Employment Minister hails Club's ongoing creation of new jobs for Tottenham

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• Tottenham Hotspur has created 1,210 new jobs for local people as a direct result of its ongoing new stadium development scheme and sport-led regeneration of the area.
• Alok Sharma MP, Minister of State for Employment, visits Club’s new hub for enterprise, skills and training at Percy House - a restored and renovated 18th century building on Tottenham High Road.
• Minister met by Tottenham Hotspur Ambassador, Ledley King, and Club Executive Director and Tottenham Hotspur Foundation Chair of Trustees, Donna-Maria Cullen, and introduced to local young people who have gained jobs via Club.

Alok Sharma MP, Minister of State for Employment, has hailed Tottenham Hotspur Football Club’s creation of 1,210 new jobs for local people through its new stadium development scheme.

The development is widely acknowledged as the catalyst for the regeneration of one of the capital’s most deprived areas. The new stadium, set to open later this year, will be the largest capacity football club stadium in London, creating a new sports and leisure destination for the capital with a hive of activity 365 days a year, a new museum, an innovative Skywalk, 21st century retail experiences, first-class conference and banqueting and high quality leisure facilities including restaurants and a hotel – and will attract in excess of two million visitors per year.

Supporting the stadium development will be a vastly improved local transport infrastructure, including redeveloped stations at White Hart Lane and Northumberland Park and upgrades at Tottenham Hale. The arrival of Crossrail 2 will further enhance an area that is already highly accessible by public transport.

The Club scheme has kick-started regeneration plans to the east and west. The Club has to date already delivered 258 new homes, 100 per cent affordable, the new Brook House Primary School on the site of an old rubber factory, the 78,000 square foot Sainsbury’s supermarket and the London Academy of Excellence Tottenham school (LAET).

To date, as a direct result of the scheme, 1,210 new jobs have been delivered across a range of industries, including retail, education, construction, hospitality, IT and security, with all going to local people.

The Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, the charitable arm of the Club, is now delivering a hub for enterprise, skills and training, creating sustainable, long-term education and employment opportunities for local people at Percy House, a prominent 18th Century building on Tottenham High Road with historic links to the Club, that has been restored and renovated to become a thriving community hub with a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and match funding from the Club.

Here, the Minister was joined by Tottenham Hotspur Ambassador and former Club Captain, Ledley King, and Donna-Maria Cullen, Executive Director of the Club and Chair of Trustees, Tottenham Hotspur Foundation, who led a tour of the facility, showcasing examples of the Foundation’s wide range of employability programmes and making introductions to local young people who have gained jobs via the scheme.

One such young person, Jordan Mattis, a Tottenham resident employed at the Sainsbury’s supermarket on Northumberland Park, said: “The support Tottenham Hotspur has given me has changed my life for the better.

“When I first came into contact with the Club I was jobless and hot-headed, with ambition but not enough drive. Under the Club’s guidance, I got a job at Sainsbury’s and have recently been promoted to a managerial position, fully qualified as a personal trainer and I now think more positively about my future.”

Alok Sharma MP, Minister of State for Employment, said: “I think the work that is going on here is really inspiring and you can see that with the young people, they are inspired and feel they are really getting something out of this. I want to congratulate the Club on all the work that it is doing.

“We also have this fantastic regeneration which is creating a lot more opportunities in terms of jobs. I think the really important bit is that there is an opportunity for young people in this area to also get employment as part of that regeneration and working together and making sure the community is right at the heart of everything the Club is doing is really important and really inspiring.

“It’s been really interesting hearing about the young people’s journeys as well because some of them come from backgrounds where they have had a pretty hard time and they’ve come here, they are getting motivated and you can feel each and every one of them wants to move on, wants to improve and one of the key themes I kept hearing from them is that when they have completed their training here, they themselves want to be mentors for their peers in the community and go out and help them. That is a wonderful thing.”

Ledley King, Tottenham Hotspur Ambassador, said: “I have been with this Club since the age of 14 – it is part of me. The strides we have made both on and off the pitch during that time have been remarkable - and the new stadium development scheme is a real statement about where we are today.

“As someone who has practically grown up in this area and seen the challenges it has faced, it fills me with pride to see how the Club is transforming Tottenham and providing so many opportunities to those who live here.”

Percy House will deliver over 95,000 hours of community development, health, enterprise, education and sports programmes every year to those living in the Club’s local area.

Heritage Lottery funding also ensures that the rich history of Tottenham is passed on to future generations, with the instatement of new Heritage Ambassadors, who along with the support of local historians, will deliver outreach sessions in schools and community venues.

Built on the site of The Black House, a mansion demolished in the early 1740s and whose inhabitants, the Percy family, were connected to the namesake of Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, Henry Hotspur, the Grade II* listed building played a pioneering role in the launch of the pirate radio movement in the 1960s.