School’s £41,000 grant for CCTV and fencing

HATHERSHAW College has received a £41,491 grant to improve security at its vandal-hit community sports facilities.

The grant, from Sport England, will be used to upgrade the fence at the school’s 3G pitch and install CCTV.

An online booking system will also be introduced to make it easier for people to hire the pitch, along with pitches at St Martin’s and Broadfield primary schools managed by the college.

We reported in August how people had used bolt cutters to break through the existing fence and use the Hathershaw pitch without permission.

Lorna Philip, assistant head teacher at Hathershaw, welcomed the grant: “It’s brilliant. We have had security issues which is a shame because we want it to be a community facility.

“We want to keep improving the facilities but all we are able to do is running repairs on vandalism.

“It was getting to the stage where we were getting downhearted.”