PARK Avenue's new owner is continuing his drive to transform the Vanarama Conference North club.

Having secured emergency pitch repairs at Horsfall Stadium and completed detailed negotiations with Bradford Council to extend the club’s lease, Gareth Roberts is now spearheading an initiative which will raise the club's profile in the community.

Park Avenue are reaching out to local schools to get more young people involved in the sport with the Community Futures project.

The club have teamed up with the Bradford-based charity Joint Activities & Motor Education Services (JAMES). The project is being 75 per cent funded with a £20,000 grant from The Football Conference Trust (FCT).

Roberts and his management team want Avenue to be a community hub in the years ahead. He said: “Through the informal efforts of some of our supporters, we’ve already had a recent influx of teenage fans from Buttershaw and Hanson schools. They’re making a huge difference to the atmosphere at our matches with their enthusiastic involvement and their tireless singing and chanting from the stand.

“We are grateful for the support of the FCT and its partners because the Community Futures project will take this sort of success further, making ongoing links to promote interest and participation in football by hundreds of boys and girls across many of our local schools. It will be good for them, good for the club and will further the aims of our partners at JAMES, so it’s a win for everyone.”

More details will be published on the club’s website soon. The presentation of the Conference Trust’s cheque to JAMES and Avenue will be made before the game against Gainsborough Trinity on Wednesday,April 1.