super sports centre AN East Lancashire school is bidding to have the best sports centre in the North of England by the millennium.

Plans are already on the drawing board for the ambitious project and governors of Fearns School, Rossendale, are now looking at funding.

Headteacher Neil Thornley will talk to the Sports Council after Spring Bank Holiday and the school will also prepare a Lottery bid.

A sum of £500,000 has been quoted as a starting point for the state-of-the-art sports centre but, if the plans are fulfilled, the project will cost much more.

It will include a new sports hall with facilities for traditional indoor sports as well as dancing, fencing, indoor basketball, archery and an international standard climbing wall plus cafe, weight rooms and changing facilities. Mr Thornley said the only thing it would lack was a swimming pool and Rossendale Council was due to build a new one on the school's doorstep at Bacup.

"It will be the best sports centre in the North of England," Mr Thornley promised. Under the school's new status the building will be open year-round for students and the public.

Five years ago Fearns staff and governors decided to open the school's facilities to the public. It is not officially designated a community school but operates in a similar way, said Mr Thornley.

Since then it has bid for money from organisations such as the Sports Council and had major additions, including a full-size football Astroturf pitch for hockey and soccer.

Mr Thornley said past experience suggested it would take at least 18 months to get full financial approval for the project and it would be the turn of the century before the new building was opened.

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