THE saga to find a new home for Pendle Croquet Club is over after the club announced it will move to a new ground for the start of next season.

The club will leave its present base at Nelson and Colne College at the end of the year and move to a new ground in Cemetery Road, Earby.

And the move will secure the long term future of the club after it signed a 25 year lease with Pendle Council to use the ground.

Work on preparing the ground will cost £70,000 with the majority of funding already in place thanks to money from club funds and members, and donations from organisations including the Croquet Association, Lancashire Small Sites Reclamation Fund and a lottery grant.

Chairman of the club John Beech said work to spread the top soil in readiness for planting grass seeds will start shortly.

He said: "We are currently developing the new site at Earby and there is a lot of work to be done in preparation to make it suitable. The club will officially move to the site in Cemetery Road on January 1 and the objective is for play to start by Easter 2005."

The move marks an end to the uncertainty that surrounded the future of the club as it struggled to find an alternative home.

It was asked to leave the college where it has played since 1986 to make way for the college's planned extension.

Last year the club was told it could set up home in Victory Park, Barnoldswick, but the site has proved unsuitable. Another site in the park was also turned down.

Mr Beech added: "The club is looking forward to moving to the new site. At one stage it looked like we might not be able to find anywhere.

"We have looked at 15 sites, and this has taken two and a half years of negotiations.

"The council have been very helpful to us all along."