Oswestry residents give thumbs up to new sports facilities
At an information meeting held in Oswestry last week, local residents from College Road gave their overwhelming support for plans to develop new sports facilities on a four acre site at the Oswestry Campus owned by Walford and North Shropshire College.
Local residents were shown plans and sample materials for the development, which will create a high quality full-size grass pitch and a smaller multi-use games area with a versatile all-weather polymeric surface. The development complements the fantastic indoor facilities in the recently opened Oswestry Leisure Centre and will benefit from refurbished changing room facilities in existing College buildings.
The College’s Estates Manager Dave Candlin was delighted with the response from local residents: “More people attended the information evening than I had expected. They were really interested to find out more and seemed very pleased to see the investment we are making. We have thought carefully about the siting of the new facilities and the specification, with invaluable help and advice from the local ward Councillors Bill Benyon and Martin Bennett. The final design has helped to allay any fears about noise and light pollution.”
Following the information meeting, preliminary works have started on site, with the aim of completing the main programme of works in early May to ensure seeding of the new pitch takes place before the height of summer. Blakedown, the contractors undertaking the £1/4m project, have already started preparatory work removing the existing turf.
Andrew Tyley, College Principal and Chief Executive believes the new sports facilities are long overdue: “We have made this investment a key priority for 2012, making full use of grant funding from the Skills Funding Agency and recycling our share of the proceeds from the sale of the former Leisure Centre site. We have a highly successful and growing sports programme which will include from September this year a Foundation Degree in Sport Development and Coaching. This development will enable us to relocate most of our sports provision back from Walford to Oswestry, releasing much needed capacity at Walford for our growing number of land-based students.”
