Darwen Cricket Club facilities revamped with Town Deal funds

Darwen Cricket Club's clubhouse has undergone a £250,000 transformation with the support of Town Deal funds.

Darwen Cricket Club’s First Team are the reigning Lancashire League Champions and its facilities at Birch Hall have been overhauled to create a vibrant community space.

The project received £200,000 from Darwen's Town Deal with a further £50,000 of match 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.

“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."

Wayne Wild, chair of the Darwen Town Deal,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.”

Blackburn with Darwen Council has also helped the cricket club secure significant extra funding through the Government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

This 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.”