In line with Aberdeenshire Council’s New Year drive to improve sports provision in the region, councillors yesterday gave two north-east communities a seasonal boost.
Inverurie will be enhanced by two new artificial sports pitches, while a Westhill sports trust is being given £10,000 to enable them to complete pitch landscaping and pavilion improvements.
Councillors accepted both initiatives at the meeting of the Garioch area committee.
Plans will now go ahead to install a 3G surface for rugby and football and a 2G multisport surface at Inverurie Community Campus.
The local authority’s sport and leisure manager, Tim Stephen said the two new floodlit pitches will offer “a huge additional range of activities, and particularly in winter months it will get a lot more people outside.”
He emphasised that there would be full community access to the new facilities, and they will be available for public use seven days a week.
He added: “3G is as near as you’re going to get to a real grass surface.”
The Lawsondale Sports Centre Trust will now be able to finalise the development of a new 3G pitch and renovation of the pavilion at Lawsondale Sports Centre in Westhill.
This was welcomed by councillor Ron McKail, who said that facilities in Westhill were currently not as good as elsewhere in Aberdeenshire.