THREE communities on the Felixstowe peninsula are trying to build sports pavilions for their playing fields.Kirton and Falkenham residents have drawn up plans for a £210,000 scheme, Bucklesham has hopes of a £122,000 project, and Trimley is working towards a £230,000 venture.

By Richard Cornwell

By RICHARD CORNWELL

Felixstowe editor

richard.cornwell@eveningstar.co.uk

THREE communities on the Felixstowe peninsula are trying to build sports pavilions for their playing fields.

Kirton and Falkenham residents have drawn up plans for a £210,000 scheme; Bucklesham has hopes of a £122,000 project; and Trimley is working towards a £230,000 venture.

All of them depend on just one thing for their success – how generous the national Lotto will be with its grant aid.

In the meantime, they are gathering grants from as many sources as possible and fundraising hard.

Bucklesham and Kirton have both been awarded £8,000 each, subject to receiving Lotto support.

Kirton and Falkenham Recreation Ground Committee wants to build on Kirton rec, which is used for football by two senior clubs and a junior club with 100 members.

The current pavilion is described as "totally inadequate" and cramped to cater for so many players needing to wash and change at the same time.

The new pavilion would also be used by various village groups and as a base for other sporting activities in the area.

At Bucklesham, the community council wants to build changing facilities, showers, toilets and a kitchen on the five-acre village playing field.

District council leisure officers support the upgrading of the field, but the community council has already suffered a major setback as Sport England has refused to give it a grant until it raises a substantial portion of the cost.

It has also told organisers of the project they need to put together a sustainable sports development plan which will give an assurance that the new facilities will actually encourage more youngsters to take up sport.

At Trimley St Mary, a trust has been formed to work with the Trimley Red Devils junior football club to provide a pavilion on the Stennett Memorial playing field in memory of murdered teenager, Vicky Hall.

A fundraising appeal spearheaded by the Evening Star has already raised £100,000 towards the cost – including a £10,000 grant pledge from Suffolk Coastal – and meetings have been held with representatives of the Suffolk FA and the Football Foundation.s