£4 million funding pledge for Whitehaven sports village
Last updated at 12:32, Tuesday, 09 March 2010
The ambitious plan for an £11 million sports village in Whitehaven has received a huge boost with regeneration body Energy Coast West Cumbria pledging around £4m to the scheme.
Ten more potential funding bodies have been identified, and the project, with an 8,000-capacity stadium to be shared by Haven RL and Whitehaven Amateurs FC at its heart, in Pow Beck Valley, is on track to be completed by 2012.
Former energy minister Brian Wilson, chairman of Energy Coast West Cumbria, believes the £4m outlay will lead to further investment from other bodies.
He said: “That’s a big start over any other area doing a project like this. We would be very confident about it triggering the other parts of the jigsaw.
“Funding is always a jigsaw, you never have the picture until all the bits are in place, but certainly the key elements are committed, and then there are other bits put around the edges of it.”
Mr Wilson, in Whitehaven yesterday for an Energy Coast board meeting, believes the new facility will have a huge impact on the area.
“It’s transformational,” he added. If you are going to send out a message about having the best in the area, why not start out with something that ordinary, working people actually appreciate and enjoy, which they would probably put very high in their priorities.”
At this stage, an indoor tennis centre is planned on site, with, he added, “the potential for bolt-ons to widen it in to a sports village,”
The new stadium will have a strong commercial aspect, including workspace, creating new jobs.
“It would be a magnet attracting events, and the conference facilities would be something that don’t really exist here,” Mr Wilson added.
“It’s not just about sport, but sport is a very strong economic transformer. A lot of jobs are associated with sport, and a lot of travel and tourism. To put a place on the map, sport is as good a way as any.”
Haven and Amateurs are partners in the stadium scheme, though the football club is yet to give the go-ahead to use its County Ground home to site the proposed new facility.
First published at 11:26, Tuesday, 09 March 2010
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk
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