A FUNDRAISING effort by a Gwent sports and community club to cover the costs of burying overhead cables underground has raised more than £35,000 in just a few weeks.
Ponthir Sports Club had been raising money to enable work to go ahead to bury electricity cables running over the ground. We previously reported that they had raised the £21,000 needed for Western Power to carry out the work, and were hoping to hit £35,000 to receive match funding from Sport Wales.
Sport Wales has since contributed £10,500 to the cause, taking the total to £35,020.
“The community have been right behind us” said club secretary John Parfitt. “We raised £24,500 by the club under the crowdfunding scheme which attracted a further £10,500 from Sport Wales.”
Western Power had planned to start the work towards the end of February, however, the recent storms and bad weather has put this on hold.
Speaking of the club and the plans, Mr Parfitt said: “It is the only accessible green space between Caerleon and Cwmbran and is about five or six acres across. We have one cricket pitch and football pitch which cross over each other as Western Power put overhead power cables across the farmland near us and across the field.”
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He said that the club is planning to have three football pitches, two of which will meet the Welsh FA’s standards once the cables had been buried and also a cricket pitch that could be used all-season round.
They are also planning a multi-use-games-area (MUGA) and four new changing rooms, which will include an accessible changing rooms, and ones for women and girls.
“We have received a lot of interest from women and girls who want to play the sports we do, so it would be right to have a changing room for them,” said Mr Parfitt.
The club has recently spent £15,000 on new nets for the cricket and believe the work in total could cost around £130,000.
They are also looking to bring some natural habitats back to the area with a number of projects on the land that is not to be used for pitches.
“We are hoping to establish some natural habitats,” said Mr Parfitt.
The group is in the process of applying for a further grant to be able to do this and provide the green space with natural habitats and then the reintroduction of wildlife.
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