Street art and basketball team up to make hoop dreams with the Orchard Park regeneration project in Southsea

With a ball and a half-court you and your mates can shoot some hoops and make like you’re Michael Jordan or LeBron James.

As with any other urban area, there are courts dotted all over Portsmouth, but many have the distinct whiff of neglect hanging over them.

But a new project by Chain Net Apparel (CNA) and Form+Function aims to transform these spaces into community and sporting hubs that people can be proud of – reinvigorating the area by combining art and basketball, bringing not only health benefits, but also making the area safer.

Focusing on Orchard Park on Goldsmith Avenue in Southsea, phase one of the project aims to rejuvenate the court to the industry standard, decorating it with a unique large-scale artwork, and improve the surrounds. Phase one was originally to include a permanent construction there to act as a hub for Chain Net Apparel and activities on the site.

However, on April 28, a fire destroyed Byngs Auto workshop right next to the park.

Annabel Innes, the founder of Form+Function says: ‘The way phase one was configured, 50 per cent of the fundraising and the focus was on regenerating the basketball court and the immediate surrounding area – the walls for artwork, the basketball timeline, the new entrance to the park, new planters, stuff like that.

‘The other half was to create a sports hub on the slither of Byngs' land which directly adjoins the basketball court. We'd been talking to him since the beginning of the year about leasing this land, knocking a hole through the wall, putting a gate in so we could have direct, safe access.

‘Chain Net Apparel were going to have a permanent sports hub there in a 20ft shipping container so we could build relationships, have a real community presence, up the safety, so Craig could run basketball coaching sessions, workshops, tournaments, all that stuff.

‘That was a significant part of it, and that quite literally went up in flames on Wednesday.

‘It had an immediate effect, because it meant we couldn't fulfil 50 per cent of what we were going to do.’

The project has a fundraiser running on the online Crowdfunder platform which was originally set with a £60,000 target.

‘We had to go back and check all our funding and our funders, we have grants from Sports England but that's contingent on us reaching the full target, so we had to go back to them and say we can't guarantee we're going to make that 60 grand target, because half of what we were intending on doing has quite literally burnt to the ground.

‘Sport England and Crowdfunder were, thankfully, incredibly supportive – we had no contingency for a massive fire.

‘They've been really great, and we've agreed with them that we're going to focus on that bits that we are able to control – so we've cut our overall crowdfunding target in half to £30,000.

‘That still secures the Sports England funding and they also gave us another two weeks to get ourselves together and bounce back from this, so it's all been very positive.’

The hub is still part of future plans, as Annabel adds: ‘The basketball permanent hub is still a really important part of the project, however, given the circumstances, it's not something we can put a timescale on yet. We will do it. We just don't know when.

‘(Garage owner) Trevor Byng’s still really keen for us to have the land, but he's got other priorities right now.’

Craig Hughes the founder of CNA, is a life-long basketball player – he played for Solent and Southwest England in his younger days and now coaches the Portsmouth under-16 squad.

He set up the company in 2018 not just as a clothing brand, but also to promote the game through sponsoring events and fundraising initiatives.

He found that the opportunities he had as a youngster were no longer there, or not so easy to access.

‘When I was younger, I found it was easily accessible and there were always schemes and clinics going on, which is another reason for the court – I just wanted to let people who play there know that there are people out there who care about basketball, so if you aspire to play