DOWNEND & Bromley Heath parish councillors and staff have held their first meeting in the new pavilion in King George V Playing Fields.
The new building cost a total of £1.47 million and has been years in the
planning.
It includes new changing rooms for sports teams, office and meeting rooms, a kitchen and a large
recreational area – and is now open for bookings from the public.
DOWNEND’S new pavilion on King George V Playing Fields is now open for residents and sports teams to use.
The prefabricated building off Sutherland Avenue has already taken and fulfilled its first hire bookings, and has hosted a meeting of Downend & Bromley Heath Parish Council, which paid the lion’s share of the project’s £1.47 million cost.
The pavilion includes four separate team changing rooms, with showers and toilets, as well as an individual changing room and shower for referees, with accessible facilities for people with disabilities.
A large function and recreation space is available for hire for social events, and includes a bar/servery linked to a kitchen.
There are also two meeting rooms, along with offices for parish council staff.
The pavilion replaced a 1960s building that had fallen into a “state of disrepair”, with changing rooms that fell foul of guidelines for safe use by children’s teams.
A project to replace it first started to take shape in
2016-7, when the parish council took over responsibility for the playing fields and began increasing council taxpayers’ precept charges to build up funds.
In 2020 the council held a residents’ consultation asking for views on the plans, submitting a planning application the following year.
It took another year for South Gloucestershire Council to grant permission, and a combination of planning conditions and inflation in the construction industry meant that the final cost was more than double the original estimate of around £700,000.
Most of the money has come from the parish council, which took out a loan of £400,000 to help meet the cost increases, following heated debate among councillors and another residents’ consultation.
The Football Foundation has paid £249,000 and South Gloucestershire Council has handed over £81,000 collected from developers.
The old pavilion was demolished and the new buildings craned into place last year, before being fitted out and connected to utilities.
Parish councillor Ben Burton has led the project, as chair of its sports pitches working group.
He said: “We are really pleased to finally throw open the doors to the new pavilion.
“This has been a project that has taken over nine years to develop, and would not have been possible without the hard work of so many people and the support of the local community.
“We hope this new pavilion will not only provide much-needed changing and recreational spaces for the sports teams but also become a hub of activity for other community uses.
“There has been a positive response from local groups, who are already booking to use the hall and meeting areas.
“We hope this demonstrates how the pavilion will become an asset for our community. We look forward to welcoming the public to see the new pavilion in the coming weeks.”
The pavilion has a manager, Chrisy DeNiro, who can be contacted for booking enquiries at PavilionManager@dbhparishcouncil.co.uk or 0117 956 7001.