A NEW sporting facility for the teams and community of Royal Wootton Bassett is beginning to come together.

Having outgrown its ground at Rylands Way, the Wootton Bassett Sports Association (WBSA), consisting of the town’s football, tennis, cricket and running clubs, sought a larger site in order to meet the community demand for sporting participation and renew the legacy of the gift of land by Major Gerard Buxton some 80 years ago.

The new 23-acre site to the north of the Malmesbury Road, opposite the Ballard’s Ash sports ground, is three times the size of Rylands Way and will secure that legacy for the next 80 years.

Funded through the sale of Rylands Way and success in grant funding awards, facilities on the new site will include eight tennis courts, two cricket pitches, four grass football pitches, a full-size artificial grass pitch, and a clubhouse including changing and social rooms.

The grass pitches are beginning to form following the installation of drainage and irrigation, and work will shortly start on the hard surface pitches, clubhouse, highway, and car park.

The new facility, wholly Association-owned and unrelated to the recent planning application for the adjacent land, is planned to open in July 2015.

Pete Yeardley, chairman of the Association said: “The membership has completely outgrown the facility to such an extent that the association is having to source out facilities outside the community and we are spending in excess of £30,000 a year.

“This is an 11-year project and we have been trying to source land and negotiate terms. It is an ongoing thing and in that time, the clubs are just getting bigger and bigger.

“I think the facility will assist the community in general, not just the sporting bodies who are part of the association.

“With having an artificial grass pitch, with having the multi-purpose tennis courts, we can now open up for community use and that is why relocation is so important to us.”

Details on opportunities for use of facilities at the site will be available in the spring of 2015 but inquiries into the use of the facilities should go to wbsa@btopenworld.com.