WORK on a multi-million pound community sports facility by Swindon Town stadium is set to begin after two local construction firms arrived on site.

Led by the Swindon Town in the Community Trust, the £2.4m community sports hub, which includes an outdoor 3D pitch and pavilion, has been made possible by a large donation by life-long fan Nigel Eady and a £1m grant from the Premier League and FA Facilities fund.

After Town legend John Trollope and the High Sherriff of Wiltshire Nicky Alberry dug the first hole last month, two local construction partners - Beard, a family-run Swindon firm going for more than 120 years - and Newbury-based S & C Slatter, have arrived on site to carry out the work.

The trust hopes the hub will make its vision of creating more sporting opportunities to a wider cross-section of people a reality.

Jon Holloway, head of trust said: “With support from our design team we went through a comprehensive tender process when selecting our construction partners for our new community facility and we were extremely pleased to offer the contracts to two local companies.

"As a Community Trust it was important for us to ideally utilise local companies where every possible in this project and to have this level of investment spent in the local economy is another benefit to this project.

Our construction partners come with a fantastic pedigree, and we’re excited to be working with them over the coming months. We can now look forward to Beard, Slatters and FieldTurf creating a facility the people of Swindon can be proud of.”

All the construction partners are now on site with the aim of getting the 3G artificial pitch operational by the summer and Swindon Town Football in the Community moved into their new home before the end of 2019.

Beard Construction director Marc Bayley added: "We’re looking forward to delivering this fantastic new sports complex in partnership with the Swindon Town Football In The Community Trust, which we expect to complete in November this year.

"Our project team will be working closely with our partners and stakeholders to minimise the impact of the construction works on the local community."

The state-of-the-art facility will enable the Community Trust and the Swindon Harriers Athletics Club to further expand and enhance the projects and programmes.

The trust delivers to a wide range of Swindon people from two to 85 years of age in sessions not solely football focussed, but also tackling issues relating to health, social inclusion, education and sports participation.