Community football hub opens in Whitby
The all-weather 3G pitch has been in the works for around six years...
It's hoped aspiring footballers in Whitby will get more opportunities, thanks to an all-weather 3G pitch for the community.
The facility at Eskdale School was partly funded by the FA and Premier League, as well as Scarborough Borough Council and local businesses.
The 3G all-weather pitch is complemented by two full-size - and one smaller - grass pitches. Overall it's taken around six years to complete.
"Whitby's always been kind of left out on a limb..."
Although it's based at Eskdale School, the pitch is a community facility, for the whole of Whitby to benefit.
PE teacher Anne-Marie Scales explains: "We've got a wealth of talent within the town, and the sporting facilities around us have been immense, across at Scarborough, Middlesborough, York. Whitby's always been kind of left out on a limb, so to have this in the town is tremendous really.
"This should hopefully become a centre of excellence for coaches, to upskill them which will then in turn have an impact on the children's development.
"We've got some girls playing football - that's something that the school and the community are going to try and develop and encourage. As part of the GCSE PE course, we look at disability sports, so we've just tried to provide an opportunity for students to understand games such as goal-ball."
Scarborough Council led the project, as part of a Borough-wide strategy.
Matt Hewison, the council's Sport's Development Manager, said: "It all started really back in 2013, when we did our playing pitch strategy for the Borough Council, that identified how many 3G pitches we needed in our Borough, so this is the last full one we're doing at the moment.
"We've had quite a few delays for various things, to do with the planning conditions, and the engineering of the site. So it's come in at just under £900,000.
"We had to use some of the contingencies because of the delays so we would have had some more money to do some other things on site.
"It's come in on budget. Not on time, but it's here now so it's there for the use is the main thing really."