BRAND new sports facilities for Swindon Town FC Community Foundation are almost finished.

The park, located between the County Ground and Swindon Harriers Athletics Club, will be ready to use in early June after the football pitch is completed.

“It’s so exciting watching the building progress,” said foundation head Jon Holloway.

“It’s been a really long-term aim and ambition of the Foundation to have our own home, so it’s just lovely to see it all come together,” he added.

There will be a full-sized all-weather pitch, with a community club pavilion. Facilities will include changing rooms, a café, offices, and a first-floor multi-use room with balconies.

“The goals were delivered yesterday. And the dugouts have gone up. It’s all those things which make it so exciting for me to see the progress,” said Mr Holloway.

Plans for the new £2.4 million Foundation Park go back 15 years to when the organisation started a facilities fund, raising £600,000 towards the project.

“When we first started our community work, we began to realise how important good facilities are. Outside Swindon, there are some really great facilities, but nothing really in Swindon itself. One of our biggest challenges over the years has been finding quality facilities at times we need them and at a cost we can afford,” said Mr Holloway.

The foundation provides sports programmes to people across Swindon aged from two to 80, ranging from tiny tots football and health programmes, to disability and social inclusion projects. A total of 30,000 people are involved each year.

“Our aim is to try and engage as many people across the whole community,” he said.

One of their long running programs is the Extra Time project aimed at over 60s to help them stay socially and physically active. They celebrated their 10 year anniversary last October and still have members who have been involved since it began. “It will be wonderful to have a place we can call home, which we can continue to provide all our projects from. It will be a place where the organisations we work with can call home too,” said Mr Holloway.

“Hopefully we will be able to break down some of the barriers to people becoming involved with us. Local people will be within walking distance of the site and we are looking to engage more locals groups and the community around it,” said Mr Holloway.

He added: “All the staff are really looking forward to the park opening. When we had the lorries taking the soil away and delivering materials to build the foundations, the guys would be out there clapping them as they went past,” he added.

The community club will be shared with the Swindon Harriers Athletics Club, and lies next to the cricket club and old bowls club, with the hope of creating a sporting hub.

The facilities have been designed with the local community in mind, particularly the use of the park by local dog walkers. The existing paths have been left open, and while the pitch has been fenced in, there is still an area of open park land for those who want to run their dogs.

“This area does get a bit dodgy in the evenings, but if we are here doing constructive projects, the hope is that those elements will disappear.

“We want the development to be a real community asset for everyone,” said Mr Holloway.