Three new multi-million-pound Sunderland City Sporting hubs have been opened.
The new facilities were made possible thanks to £14.2m of investment from the Premier League, The FA and the Government’s Football Foundation, plus a £6.7m contribution from Sunderland City Council. Alongside additional partnership funding, it represented the biggest ever investment into a portfolio of grassroots sporting facilities in the North-East.
BSP Consulting was part of the team involved in the developments which included the creation of ten full-size third-generation (3G) artificial grass pitches (AGPs), as well as new and refurbished buildings at each site, with changing rooms, café areas, and social and education spaces.
Each hub has its own unique selling-point; Washington Hub has a rugby union accredited 3G amongst its four AGPs, Ford Hub boasts the ability to host national league football games on its stadia 3G and the Downhill Hub also features a state-of-the-art 60-station gym and fitness studio.
The Sunderland City Sporting hubs will also play a key role in hosting one of the largest grassroots football leagues in the country, the Russell Foster Youth League.
The improvements were delivered under the five-year Football Foundation Framework won by a Midlands partnership that includes sporting architecture firm LK2, framework managing consultant Gleeds, civil and structural engineer BSP Consulting and M&E engineer Couch Perry Wilkes.
The consortium is one of only two nationally appointed Football Association/Football Foundation/Sport England Framework Management Consultants for the delivery of changing rooms, clubhouses and associated facilities.
This is a £300m+ investment from the key partners over five years via a managed application process through the Football Foundation.
This was the latest in a number of projects that BSP and LK2 have successfully delivered together.
