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First look inside Darwen Cricket Club after £250,000 refurb
A dramatic transformation has been made to Darwen Cricket Club after following a £250,000 investment.
The impressive clubhouse refurbishment has been made possible by the Darwen Town Deal, allowing for the complete new look. The facilities at Birch Hall have been completely overhauled creating a new, modern and vibrant community space.
The Town Deal has given the successful project £200,000 and it will also benefit from a further £50,000 of 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.
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“The project itself has been a huge team effort with the club heavily relying on volunteers and the goodwill of our supporters 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!” The First Team at Darwen Cricket Club are the reigning champions of the Lancashire League, so they are looking forward to a jam-packed summer filled with games and the chance to defend their 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.”
Wayne Wild,. the Chair of the Darwen Town Deal was invited to Friday’s First Team fixture, seeing the improvements to the clubhouse. He was with the Leader of the Council, Councillor Phil Riley and MP for Darwen and Rossendale, Sir Jake Berry, who are 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.”
Extra funding has also been secured by Blackburn with Darwen Council, the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund. This funding 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.”
Five key themes make up the Town Deal projects. These include town centre regeneration, employment growth and business innovation, Destination Darwen (including trails to the iconic Jubilee Tower), Connected Darwen with ultrafast fibre broadband and a brand new East Lancashire Sports Village.
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