Frew welcomes Clough sports boost

He said: “The people have waited patiently for this to materialise and some were and still are cautious, thinking that it would never be done.

“I made a promise to the Clough people and the wider Braid area that if I received a mandate from them back in 2005 that I would fight tooth and nail to improve the standards of their sporting facilities.

“Since then we have seen the arrival of the Milk Cup to Broughshane and an excellent pitch that is kept to a great standard in Broughshane and now, in Clough, we will soon have a brand new pitch with four changing rooms and all fitted out to a high standard,” said the Councillor.

“We will also have an excellent 3G training area which can be used extensively day and night as it will be flood lit .

“At the very start of my political career I took it upon myself to assist Cllr Sam Hanna in lobbying for these facilities,” he added.

“We walked the ground in Clough with the football teams and community association in order to find suitable ground. Council then bought the land and applied for planning permission.

thanks

“We also actively sought out grant funding and we secured 240,000 from Sports NI,” said Mr Frew who extended thanks to Council staff, Ronnie Mcbride and Birnie Candlish for all their hard work and also to the Councillors who approved the scheme.

“It has been a long journey which has been patiently fought by the football teams who have seen their teams suffer to the degree where they lost the youth teams,

“I will assist them with the rebuilding work that will surely now commence”.

Mr Frew also gave credit to the community association “who have never lost faith on this”.

“I know how much this scheme will mean to them and to the wider community including the school and youth groups of the village,” he said.

“Much work still needs to be done however and I will be meeting with everyone involved next week to inform them of the time frames involved with the tender process and building works associated with the project”.