Boost For Mallaig Sporting Community

The sporting community of Mallaig received a welcome boost today (Monday 11 March) with the official opening of a £600,000 all-weather pitch adjacent to Mallaig High School, which will ensure that a wide variety of outdoor team sports can be played throughout the year. The project has involved the complete re-construction of an existing playing field which had become unusable due to subsidence. The Highland Council was awarded £127,342 from the sportscotland Lottery Fund to help create a multi-use all-weather playing field that is a joint school and community facility.

Councillor Michael Foxley Chairman of Lochaber Area’s Education, Culture and Sport Committee, officially opened the pitch by unveiling a plaque. He said: "One of the clear intentions of this project to build a top quality pitch was to encourage healthy living and lifestyles by getting more young people involved in playing and enjoying more sport more often. High quality local facilities are the essential first step in bringing sports into our children’s lives. Sport builds character, it encourages teamwork, personal effort, fitness, desire to succeed, the ability to face and deal with occasional disappointment and most of all, it is fun. I am sure the pitch will be well used and will be a great asset to the whole community. I want to thank everyone involved in the project, especially the local councillor, Charlie King."

Julia Bracewell OBE, Chair of sportscotland, said: "We are delighted to have supported the

creation of the new all-weather pitch at Mallaig High School with an award of £127,342 from the sportscotland Lottery funded Sports Facilities Programme. This new facility is the sixth all-weather pitch sportscotland has funded within The Highland Council area and shows our commitment to improving the quality of Scotland's stock of pitches. The new pitch will provide the school and community with a quality outdoor playing surface for year round use, ensuring that more people have the opportunity to participate and

develop in sport."

Users of the new facility will include both Primary and High School pupils and the town’s two football teams, Mallaig F.C. and the Mallaig Magpies, saving them a 90 mile-round trip to play their home games.

Head Teacher of Mallaig High School, Martin Sullivan, said: "Before this all-weather pitch was constructed we had no outdoor sports pitch so it has really breathed new life into the sporting activity of the community and has proved to be very popular with the pupils."

Local Councillor, Charlie King, said: "This has been a long-awaited project and I am very happy that Mallaig now has a top sporting facility which is already well used and will help young people develop their sporting skills in a wide range of sports including football, hockey and shinty."

The contractor for the project was RJ MacLeod.