Thursday 14 December 2000
“The opening of a new public sports centre in the grounds of Scotland's largest secondary school is a leading example of the type of joint school and community use of sports facilities that sport scotland believes is the way ahead,” said sport scotland's Chief Executive, Ian Robson, today.
“What we are opening today is a top quality sports facility that will be widely used by the school's 2,400 pupils, while at the same time providing the local population with a much needed community recreation facility.”
Speaking at the opening of the new £4m Holyrood Sports Centre at Holyrood Secondary School in Glasgow, Ian Robson said, “What we are opening today is a top quality sports facility that will be widely used by the school's 2,400 pupils, while at the same time providing the local population with a much needed community recreation facility.”
The building of Holyrood Sports Centre was made possible with the help of almost £1.9m of Lottery funds from sport scotland. Facilities on offer at the new complex include: an eight badminton court sports hall; dance studio; multi-purpose room/creche; and a floodlit synthetic pitch.
By creating a dual use facility, sport scotland and Glasgow City Council are hoping to ensure maximum use from the building as peak public use of sports centres tends to be in the evenings and weekends when school use is at a minimum.
In addition, a dual use facility will encourage closer ties between the school and local clubs using the centre, which will help in directing more young people to after school sports activities.
Getting pupils involved with their local clubs during their school years will also have the knock-on benefit of making it an easier and more natural progression to continue their participation in sport and recreation after they leave school.
Rt. Hon. The Lord Provost of Glasgow City Council, Alex Mosson, said: “Holyrood Sports Centre joins many other prestigious facilities in our city such as Scotstoun, Tollcross, Springburn and Gorbals, and we don't intend to stop there.
“We are determined to help the people of Glasgow improve their health and fitness.”
Also announced today is funding for a further 13 school and community sports facilities as part of a £4.6m package of funding for sports facilities across Scotland (see separate release here). This brings to over £95m invested to date in improving sports facilities for the Scottish public since the introduction of the sport scotland Lottery Fund in 1995. * Sport 21 , Scotland's national strategy for sport, states, “Scotland's pressing need for indoor sports halls would be halved if all current school facilities were available for community use during weekday evenings, weekends and school holidays.” * sport scotland supports a number of initiatives to get young people more active including the lottery funded School Sports Co-ordinator scheme, which currently operates in 250 secondary schools, and the TOP Play/TOP Sport programme aimed at putting specialist sports equipment into primary schools.
- This week, sport scotland also announced almost £3m of new investment towards introducing an Active Primary School programme aimed at increasing the range, frequency and quality of opportunity for young children to participate in safe and enjoyable physical activity and sport.