DREAM: Cliviger Recreation and Community Association sports chairman and parish councillor David Morgan holds the model of the planned sports and community hall VILLAGERS of Cliviger have set themselves a £1 million sporting challenge.

That is the amount they need to raise to fund an ambitious sports and community hall project.

Planning permission has just been granted for the two-storey facility to replace the dilapidated changing rooms on the Mount Lane sports field.

The granting of planning permission follows two years of hard work, raising £6,000 just to get this far.

But the villagers have already provided for themselves with a £100,000 project to create a play area on a former Lancashire County Council highways depot site in Park Lane.

Members of CRACA, the Cliviger Recreation and Community Association, are now busy developing applications for landfill tax and lottery grant for the £1million sports field project.

The playing fields are owned by Lancashire County Council but the land on which the facility is to be build has been provided by the parish council, who are charging a peppercorn £5-a-year rent.

CRACA sports section chairman and parish councillor David Morgan said that as well as developing the play area and raising money for the sports field the organisation had also provided games equipment for the local cubs and donated at least £5,000 to the village school.

The proposed building will include a gymnasium, multi-purpose function room for use by organisations in the village -- and which can be converted into a 200-seater meeting room or theatre -- changing accommodation and upstairs club bar and social area. There will also be a kitchen and garage for lawnmowers and other equipment.

It is intended that the building will be fully computerised so that entry can be by swipe card so that it does not need to be continually manned.

Mr Morgan said: "Cliviger is the biggest parish by area in the country and has a population of 5,000.

"At the moment we have few facilities but this will change all that and provide a building which all sections of the community can use."

The building has been designed and a model of it created by Ivan Wilson architects of Clitheroe.

Mr Morgan said: "We have received good support from the MP Peter Pike, Burnley Council and county councillor Terry Burns.

"We are now busy preparing bids for landfill tax grants and lottery money as well as continuing with our own money raising efforts."

The next big event is a fund-raising dinner in the James Hargreaves Suit at Burnley Football Club on Saturday, April 28, featuring Norman Prince of Radio Lancashire as compere and speaker and comedian John Welch.

Tickets are £25. For details call Mr Morgan on 01282 436669.