Track under starters orders

Hopes are high that such a track could ease life for the area's talented athletes, who are forced to travel as far as Lancaster and Manchester to do serious training.

A big fund-raising exercise is already planned and a public meeting has been organised to drum up support.

Spearheading the project is district and town councillor Simon Butterfield (Far Cross), who has taken up the baton from previous people who have tried unsuccessfully to get a track built in the town.

The former rugby union player believes it is possible to raise the £250,000 needed for a synthetic track, which would serve all 27 sports, athletic clubs and associations in the South Lakeland area.

Coun Butterfield has started writing to local businesses to gain their support.

He is also planning to hold Saturday street collections in a bid to raise around £20,000 to add to the £20,000 Kendal Town Council has already earmarked for the provision of an athletics track in the town from its Jubilee Fund.

Once that initial target has been met, Coun Butterfield plans to apply for match funding from Sport England and is optimistic that, once up and running, the project will gather momentum as more and more individuals and organisations get on board.

A public meeting has been set up at Kendal Town Hall on Sunday, September 22, starting at 3pm, at which Coun Butterfield will outline his plans and set up a committee to run what he is calling The Kendal & District Sports and Athletics Association.

"We are gifted in Kendal and surrounding area in having all these sports clubs and associations but athletes are being forced to travel to places like Lancaster and Manchester if they want to do any serious training," said Coun Butterfield.

"In the past, Coun John Studholme has pursued this issue and did approach Sport England and the National Lottery for match funding but at that time no site had been secured and no monies set aside towards it.

"I feel that both Sport England and the National Lottery did not feel that we were serious in our aims.

They also stated that the grants procedure was largely based on head of population and as there was already an athletics track in Lancaster then Kendal did not warrant its own.

"I believe that if we can secure a site and with the fact that Kendal Town Council has pledged the sum of £20,000, we can show both Sport England and the National Lottery that we are serious in our aims and ambitions and hopefully we will be successful this time around.

"I don't enter into anything that I don't think is achievable and I intend to succeed.

If I don't get there at the first attempt I shall carry on plugging away until it is achieved."

Coun Butterfield has a site in mind but was not willing to divulge details as negotiations with the landowner had still to take place.

Chairman of Kendal Athletic Club Margaret Belk said it was a long-held dream to have an athletics track in the town and the club would support any moves to take the project forward.

She said it had been hoped an athletics track would have been created as part of plans to develop North Sandylands but the mixed-use scheme (housing and industrial) was turned down as part of the public inquiry into the 2006 Local Plan.

"What Kendal Athletic Club wants is an acknowledgment of the high standard of athletics that is going on here with no facilities at all," she said.

Sport England development manager Stuart Bailey said anyone applying for lottery funding would have to demonstrate a need for an athletics track and its development potential would be looked at.

Alison Wyeth, regional development co-ordinator for the UK Athletics Association, said Kendal was not identified as having a need for an athletics track in the UK athletics strategy but added that she was fully supportive of a facility in the town.

She suggested that a training resource - four to six lane straights with two lanes of synthetic track on the bend - might be more achievable.