We're bowled over with £90,238 grant

Saltaire Cricket Club members are celebrating after being awarded a huge grant to improve their pavilion.

Sport England Lottery Fund will provide £90,238 towards improvements - costing £108,678 in total - at the pavilion in Roberts Park.

Electricity will be installed and showers and toilets for home and visiting teams provided, including facilities for the disabled. A kitchen will be built upstairs, along with extra rooms and a new score box with extra storage.

According to chairman Jeff Driver, it will be the first time the ground has been improved for about 100 years. The club was founded in 1869, 16 years after the opening of nearby Salts Mill.

"We are delighted," he said. "It's a great thing for the cricket club and for Saltaire. We have been trying for about six years now. It's going to make a tremendous difference and give us the opportunity to offer facilities which people expect to have when taking part in cricket. We have done magnificently competing at the level we do with the facilities we have had to put up with."

Mr Driver, who has been chairman for about ten years, is hoping the work will start in September and be finished by Christmas.

A £160,000 lottery bid was turned down two years ago but members of the club continued to hold fundraising events such as sportsmen's dinners and tabletop sales to raise money.

The club, which competes in the second division of the Bradford League, boasts cricket legends Jim Laker and SF Barnes as former players. It offers coaching and practice to youngsters, has links with the Yorkshire Cricket Board development structure, and plans to encourage female players, with the possibility of a women's team.

A Sport England spokesman said the money had been awarded because of the work the club does with children and the plans for women's cricket.

"The club has been exceedingly dedicated because the bid has taken a while to get through the system."