Published Saturday 3 June 2023 at 10:40
Darwen Cricket Club’s impressive clubhouse transformation is now well over the line with help from the Darwen Town Deal.
The facilities at Birch Hall have been completely overhauled creating a new, modern and vibrant community space.
The successful project has benefited from £200,000 from the Town Deal with a further £50,000 of match funding raised by the club.
Chris Lowe, Chair of Darwen Cricket Club, said:
These plans have been in the pipeline for many years, but we’d never have been able to do it to this scale without the Town Deal funding.
The project itself has been a huge team effort with the club heavily relying on volunteers, the goodwill of our supporters and local businesses and I’m so proud of the end result and what we’ve been able to achieve.
The clubhouse looks fantastic and we’ve already got more than 80 functions booked in and interest from community groups who’d like to make use of it during the day too.
We’ve created a bit of a monster, but in the best possible sense!
Darwen Cricket Club’s First Team are the reigning Lancashire League Champions with a packed summer of games ahead as they look to defend the title.
Chris added:
This investment is really important in helping ensure the club can be sustainable for the future – paving the way for more success both on and off the field.
We took inspiration from what’s worked really well elsewhere, but it’s been the Town Deal funding that’s been the major factor in the success of the scheme and for that, we’re incredibly grateful.
Chair of the Darwen Town Deal, Wayne Wild was invited to Friday’s First Team fixture to see the improvements to the clubhouse along with Leader of the Council, Councillor Phil Riley and MP for Darwen and Rossendale, Sir Jake Berry – both Darwen Town Deal Board Members.
Congratulating the club, Wayne said:
It’s fantastic what’s been achieved here – the clubhouse looks really impressive and you can see just how much hard work has gone in to this project, making it a huge success.
This is a valuable facility, for the cricket club and the wider community too and it’s brilliant to hear just how busy they are with bookings already.
We’re still in the early days of the Town Deal, but when we look at the work to the Tower, Olympians visiting the nearby Junction4 Skatepark and work progressing well at Darwen FC, we can already see the impact the accelerated funding is having and we’re looking forward to really building on that with so much more yet to come.
Blackburn with Darwen Council has also helped the cricket club secure significant extra funding through the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
This will be used to improve the outdoor facilities – well used by the club’s men’s, women’s and junior teams – with more details to be shared soon.
Councillor Phil Riley, Leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council, added:
It’s been a joy to visit the clubhouse and to see how Darwen Town Deal has helped make a difference.
This has been a superb effort by all involved at Darwen Cricket Club and the local businesses which have supported too – this is a facility they can all be really proud of.
The Town Deal will leverage £100m of new investment over the coming years – more than we’ll have ever seen before in our lifetimes – and it will help kick-start the regeneration of the town.
The Town Deal projects centre around five key themes:
– Town centre regeneration
– Employment growth and business innovation
– Destination Darwen – including trails to the iconic Jubilee Tower
– Connected Darwen with ultrafast fibre broadband
– A brand new East Lancashire Sports Village
For all Darwen Town Deal updates, please click here.
