Town council gives boost to football project
Thursday, 28th January 2010.
Haverhill's new community football project has been given a boost by Haverhill Town Council, in the form of more than £14,000 in grants.
Haverhill Community Sports Association had a shortfall of nearly £45,000 on the preject at Chalkstone Way, which is now nearing completion.
The town council is a member of the partnership and had been asked for help.
At Tuesday's meeting of the council's community first committee, members agreed to help out with £5,250 for an industrial washiong machine to wash kit, and to take £1,000 from its youth grants budget to pay for two extra floodlights needed for the practice pitch.
But the biggest boost for the project came when the committee agreed to a grant to finance a borehole and pump at a cost of £8,345.
This had initially been put forward as a loan in a report by town clerk Gordon Mussett, who said he was mindful of making the best use of public funds. The borehole would make for a great saving on watering costs which could be used to pay back the loan
But Cllr Margaret Marks proposed this should also be a grant, because she did not want to see the project start off with a debt to clear, and there would doubtless be a lot of other expense which the savings could be used for.
Handwatering costs would be about £2,000 a year, apart from the time involved, members heard from the association's chairman, Steve Brown of Haverhill Rovers.
Members agreed to Cllr Marks' proposal. Cllr Maureen Byrne said iof it was needed for the work the club did, then it would hjave to be put in.
Mr Brown explained if the borehole was to be put in it would have to be done very soon within the progress of the works.
He told members Haverhill Rovers was now involving some 375 people in 17 teams including men, boys, girls and ladies. They were now looking at Sunday football team, and also a team in the Halstead League on Saturdays, to give all abilities the opportunity to take part.
But he also said they were looking at links to other sports. It was important the site was used during the summer, so they hoped to talk to Haverhill Cricket Club about the possbility of another pitch, and also look into baseball on the site.
The project is costing £1.95m, of which St Edmundsbury Council is putting up £1.4m. But it had run short of the planned original funding after the FA cut £500,000 from what it had earmarked for it.
There is still a need to find £30,000 for lighting of training pitches so that the site can be used to its full potential.
The town council agreed to help the association seek other funding sources for this.
Haverhill Community Sports Association had a shortfall of nearly £45,000 on the preject at Chalkstone Way, which is now nearing completion.
The town council is a member of the partnership and had been asked for help.
At Tuesday's meeting of the council's community first committee, members agreed to help out with £5,250 for an industrial washiong machine to wash kit, and to take £1,000 from its youth grants budget to pay for two extra floodlights needed for the practice pitch.
But the biggest boost for the project came when the committee agreed to a grant to finance a borehole and pump at a cost of £8,345.
This had initially been put forward as a loan in a report by town clerk Gordon Mussett, who said he was mindful of making the best use of public funds. The borehole would make for a great saving on watering costs which could be used to pay back the loan
But Cllr Margaret Marks proposed this should also be a grant, because she did not want to see the project start off with a debt to clear, and there would doubtless be a lot of other expense which the savings could be used for.
Handwatering costs would be about £2,000 a year, apart from the time involved, members heard from the association's chairman, Steve Brown of Haverhill Rovers.
Members agreed to Cllr Marks' proposal. Cllr Maureen Byrne said iof it was needed for the work the club did, then it would hjave to be put in.
Mr Brown explained if the borehole was to be put in it would have to be done very soon within the progress of the works.
He told members Haverhill Rovers was now involving some 375 people in 17 teams including men, boys, girls and ladies. They were now looking at Sunday football team, and also a team in the Halstead League on Saturdays, to give all abilities the opportunity to take part.
But he also said they were looking at links to other sports. It was important the site was used during the summer, so they hoped to talk to Haverhill Cricket Club about the possbility of another pitch, and also look into baseball on the site.
The project is costing £1.95m, of which St Edmundsbury Council is putting up £1.4m. But it had run short of the planned original funding after the FA cut £500,000 from what it had earmarked for it.
There is still a need to find £30,000 for lighting of training pitches so that the site can be used to its full potential.
The town council agreed to help the association seek other funding sources for this.
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