CRUNCH talks will be held this week as councillors decide whether to plough £300,000 into a Kirkby Stephen sports hall project.

Members of Eden District Council's community and economy committee will meet tomorrow (Thursday, January 4) to discuss plans to develop the facility at Kirkby Stephen Grammar School.

The school is planning to allocate £150,000 towards the £1m plus project and is requesting the contribution from the district council before applying to Cumbria County Council's sustainability fund to cover the balance of the costs.

A previous application for funding from the county council's new opportunities fund was knocked back at the same time that funding was secured for Appleby Sports Hall, which also received £300,000 from the district council.

The proposals would see the school's existing 12-metre by 21-metre hall quadruple in size, enabling it to accommodate four badminton courts and a whole new range of school activities.

New changing rooms would be built and the facility would be made available to community groups and clubs for out of school use.

A review of current sports facilities at the college, undertaken by Youth Sport Trust consultants, said that while there was a variety of reasonably good' facilities, it suffered from a lack of quality modern indoor sports space of sufficient size, design and fit-out.

A report by the district council's technical director Steve Huddart said that the project would undoubtedly bring benefits and pointed to the success of the Appleby Sports Hall, insisting that it had been a valuable addition to the existing facilities.

"Any support from Eden would have to be underpinned by a justified business case which substantiated the sporting need, confirmed the community involvement and direction of the scheme and a sound business case for future sustainability and provided a significant priority for spending, given the council's declining resources," says the report.

The report also recommends that the council investigates the project further in order to gather more detail on aspects such as the amount of community use and the long-term viability of the scheme before a decision is made.