Garstang Community Academy says 'thank you' after £5,000 funding boost

Garstang Community Academy has been awarded £5,000 by house builders Persimmon Homes after the academy was named a finalist in the company’s ‘Healthy Communities’ scheme to support sport in young people throughout the country.

The academy was chosen by Persimmon Homes Lancashire as its regional winner after they were impressed with plans to create a modern multi-sport facility for the entire Garstang community to use as well as 11,000 children from feeder primary schools.

Diane Finch, sales director at Persimmon Homes Lancashire, said: “We have been overwhelmed by both the response to the competition, and the hard work of those involved within the sporting clubs, who work exceptionally hard to train the next generation of sporting heroes.

“We were especially impressed by the Garstang Community Academy and their dedication to the local community.

“It is clear their scheme to create a modern multi-sports facility could provide sporting opportunities for hundreds of people. The aim of Healthy Communities, when it was launched, was to create a sporting legacy and we believe this is the type of grassroots scheme that could achieve this goal.”

Prior to the gala dinner at York Racecourse last month to announce the winners, the academy received overwhelming support from the town community in the public vote to see who would receive Persimmon’s top prize of £200,000.

Business development manager at the academy, Tracey Jones, said: “It is contributions such as this which are enabling us to push forward with the build so that the pitch is ready for use in September.

“We want to thank everyone who got behind us and voted in the competition. It was disappointing not to win the overall prize but it was hugely rewarding to see the groundswell of support we received from the local community, and hope to harness that as we continue our fund-raising effort.

“We still have some work to do and are continuing to fund-raise to meet the our goal, but we’re confident that with the continued support of our school and local community we will achieve the target over the next few months.

“We are appealing to local residents and businesses to chip in towards the project which will help the whole community benefit from first class sports facilities for many years to come.”