A long-awaited new leisure facility in a Derbyshire village is set to open early next year after years in limbo.
The under-construction pavilion and changing rooms facility at the Charles Hill Sports Ground, in Flamstead Avenue, Loscoe, started in May and is now due to open in mid-January.
This comes after years of work to seal the new facility which has had to be scaled back drastically over the years from a full sports complex and cafe and community rooms costing at one point £2 million in 2011 due to budget constraints.
Funding from Government grants, housing developers, the Football Foundation, Derbyshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner, Amber Valley Borough Council and Heanor and Loscoe Town Council have seen the project get over the line.
The sports field has been home to just a temporary portacabin, for use by youth football teams, since the former facility was demolished.
It will be replaced by a new facility containing a sports pavilion, changing rooms, kitchens, parking spaces and a community hall after more than a decade of planning.
Due to funding constraints, the project was split in two, with the pavilion being built first and the community hall and changing rooms being built afterwards.
The borough council approved its own plans back in October 2020, but a report to be approved by the authority’s cabinet on December 6 says the facility will soon be open.
It also details the council is also looking to hand the facility over to another organisation to run and maintain, leasing it from January 2024 until March 2026.
The council estimates that looking after the facility itself could cost £40,000 a year, when the authority is looking hard to find ways to cut its budget so it can be legally balanced each March.
Once complete, the single-storey scheme would include a large community room which can be subdivided and rented, a kitchen and servery and a second smaller kitchen overlooking the car park.
It would also include storage for sports equipment, two team changing rooms designed to FA standards for youth football with direct access to the pitch, two changing rooms for officials, a small office area, toilets for visitors and separate toilets for what are described as “sports users”.
The total ground floor area of the proposed facility is 431 square metres.
It would have 152 parking spaces, including four for disabled visitors.
The proposed new Charles Hill sports centre in Loscoe. Image from William Saunders.
