The sun shone brightly on Saturday as the brand new Winchester Sports Stadium was offically opened.
Saturday (May 2 2009) saw the Winchester Sports Festival take place at Bar End and the official opening of the brand new Winchester Sports Stadium.
- Steve Brine TV link - see Steve's short-film made at the opening on Saturday May 2 2009.
Open to the local community it offers an Olympic standard eight-lane athletics track, with supporting field facilities for the high jump, long jump, pole vault, discuss, hammer and javelin. The stadium also has an all-weather pitch, suitable for hockey and football. Both have floodlighting and changing room facilities in the pavilion.
Work began in July 2007 and it costs £3.5m; the project was managed by the University with support and money from Winchester City Council, Hampshire County Council and Winchester & District Athletic Club. The project also successfully bid for funding from Sport England and Norwich Union Community Sports Fund. The stadium opened to users in July 2008.
Prospective Winchester MP Steve Brine was there for the big day and said he was “thrilled” to see the stadium open for business. “It’s hard to believe Winchester has not always had such a facility", he said.
"I pay great tribute to the University for making this a reality and to the Conservative-led City Council for putting £1m into the pot. Their political opponents locally were quick to criticise this investment at the time but it was good to see them all there on Saturday enjoying the official opening! My hope now is that we can find a future British sports star who was given the chance because of this brand new sports stadium and running track.”
More information ...
You can find the Winchester Sports Stadium online via www.winchester.ac.uk/ or by emailing [email protected]
You can download a high-res version of the above picture in our Gallery.
Steve Brine is pictured above with Cllr Patricia Stallard, the portfolio holder responsible at WCC. Hopefully the many users of the new track will have better sprint-start positions than Steve!