Forest Shelter, Toilets and Hockey Facilities

Aim

Norton Sports Charity wants to get people active in a covid secure way by building new facilities for our community forest and hockey pitch.

ABOUT US AND OUR VISION

Norton Sports Charity is a major provider of facilities for recreation, sport and social activities in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees in North East England. We are open to all with our vision being to improve the conditions of life for everyone who uses our 55-acre site. Our many volunteers work tirelessly to maintain and develop our facilities and activities for the benefit of others.  

As part of our strategy of growing our way out of the pandemic in a covid secure way, we plan to build a new shelter for our community forest and install new dugouts and entrances to our hockey pitch.  These are very important projects within our current focus on people with disabilities and those from disadvantaged circumstances. Whilst we have received some emergency funding through the pandemic for which we are extremely grateful and have raised a considerable amount towards the new facilities, we need to raise additional funds to allow us to complete these very important projects.

WALK, RUN, DO SPORT IN OUR COMMUNITY FOREST!!!

For the forest, there is a wonderful opportunity to increase physical activity by making the forest more accessible to visitors including through the provision of toilets for the disabled.  We will also be able to enhance the usage of our archery, football and orienteering activities through this development.  There is a lot of interest in the forest from local schools and our neighbouring autism respite centre as well as from the general public.  

''The forest provides a curtain round our 28 acre North Site and is ideal for walking and trail running and already has a mapped orienteering course in place'' says Carole Frost our Director responsible for Environmental Sustainability. 

''We have well over 3,000 native deciduous trees with additional paths and tracks being added as well as various nature study facilities such as bird hides and bird and bat boxes.  Once we are able to open the forest up more by having the improved facilities including a shelter like the one shown, it really will be a great addition for the local community''.  

BETTER, SAFER HOCKEY FOR LONGER

The hockey pitch facility improvements are required to improve covid security through provision of new dugouts remote from the spectator area and by creating new entrances.  The latter will also extend the life of the pitch as it will reduce the amount of contamination brought on to the playing surface. 

Jon Carter (Chairman of Norton Hockey Club) said : ''This is a critical project to improve the facilities in a covid secure way and to help ensure that our club continues to grow in the years ahead.'' With over 15,000 separate visits to the hockey pitch each year from individuals from schools, universities, local clubs and other organisations, the project will hugely benefit a very significant number of people.

IMPROVED ACCESSIBILITY - A VERY SPECIAL FEATURE OF THE PROJECT

Following an audit by the disability sport charity 'Smile Through Sport' in 2020, both elements of the project are a key part of us improving accessibility to our facilities - this includes for people with disabilities and also students from Daisy Chain which is our neighbouring autism respite centre.                                                                                                                                         The new entrances to the hockey pitch will allow much easier access including for participants in our 'Flyerz' hockey sessions. Similarly the toilets associated with the forest shelter will include facilities for the disabled and will therefore be able to service the hockey, tennis, football and archery played in this part of our site. Daisy Chain run very popular Forest School activities in our community forest and we are sure they will make extensive use of the shelter including the toilets.

WE NEED TO RAISE £20,000 MORE TO ENABLE THE PROJECT TO GO AHEAD.......

Our fundraising efforts have been severely impacted by the pandemic but we have managed to secure approximately 80% of the funds required for the project. It has been a fantastic effort to raise this £80,000 but we do need a further £20,000 to allow the project to proceed with crowdfunding being the most appropriate way to do this. Any support you could give would be greatly appreciated!!!

This project successfully funded on 26th February 2022