@Worle in Safe Hands in Weston-super-Mare

OPENING OF @WORLE IN SAFE

HANDS

The official opening of the

new community sports and day services facilities on the Worle Community School

site in Weston-super-Mare is in safe hands.

England women's goalkeeper

Siobhan Chamberlain joined the Chairman of North Somerset Council, Cllr Terry

Porter, at the opening on Friday January 25.

The council's £2.7m project,

known as @Worle, combines community sports facilities with day services for

people with learning disabilities provided by the Brandon Trust on behalf of the

council.

The facilities

include:

• fitness suite

• dance studio

• 3G full-size football artificial turf

  pitch with floodlighting

• a sand-based artificial turf pitch for

  hockey

• multi-purpose rooms

• café

• kitchen

• indoor and outdoor changing

  facilities

• fully accessible toilet/changing

  facility

Banwell Pottery, also run by

Brandon Trust, and the council's community meals service have also relocated to

the new building.

The fitness gym, dance studio and café

are available for use by the community during the daytime, evenings and

weekends. The artificial turf pitches and the multi-purpose rooms are also

available, evenings and weekends.

The building work, carried

out by Willmott Dixon, started in April last year and was completed on time and

on budget in December.

The facility opened to the

public earlier this month and is already being well used with over 100 members

of the fitness gym and more than 20 teams/clubs using the 3G artificial turf

pitch.

At Friday's opening the

facilities were handed over to the @Worle trust, a not-for-profit

organisation who will take over the management of @Worle. The trust is currently

made up of representatives of Worle School, North Somerset Council, the Brandon

Trust and the Somerset County Football Association.

The trust has already applied

to Sport England's Inspired Facilities Fund for funding to provide four floodlit

netball/tennis courts behind the new building.

"This innovative approach to

providing much-needed community facilities shows how services can continue to be

delivered and improved at a time of huge financial challenge for the council,"

said Cllr Felicity Baker, executive member for community

services.

For a full range of photographs of the event & the facilities available click here to see the gallery by N Somerset photographer Jeremy Long