Douai Park ready to go
£500k multi-use sports pavilion contract set to be signed
THE next step towards replacing the 1920s sports pavilion at Douai Park is about to be taken.
The Douai Park Recreation Association had plans to demolish the pavilion and replace it with a two-storey sports building, including changing rooms and community facilities, approved in 2013. The plan also includes a 49-space car park.
The association needed to raise £500,000 towards the project and is now ready to sign a contract for the work to begin.
The project was kickstarted through a pledge of more than £100,000 from the local community. Grants have also come from Sport England, The Football Foundation, Greenham Common Trust and the Douai Society (past Douai School pupils).
Clubs stretching from Thatcham to Tilehurst currently use the park and the association wants to provide a fit-for-purpose pavilion for them, and other community groups, to use.
Douai Park has been run for the last 14 years by the association, comprising representatives from each of the clubs that use the park.
The existing pavilion was constructed in 1922 to honour the Old Boys of Douai School killed in the First World War.
The school closed in 1999 and Douai Abbey agreed to lease the sports ground to the association for a 99-year period, if it agreed to refurbish or rebuild the pavilion.
The chairman of the Douai Park Recreation Association, David Howe, said that it was fitting that at the end of the centenary of the war’s outbreak, funds for a new pavilion and memorial plaque had been granted.
Construction is expected to begin this autumn. Sport will be played on the park using temporary accommodation while the work is carried out.
Mr Howe said: “A great deal of work has gone into this project. I am very grateful to many people in the community who have contributed to this project, but a special thanks go to Richard Morris and Jack Lovell, who have spearheaded the project.
“The new pavilion will make Douai Park a major sporting venue in West Berkshire and be used by the community for many other activities.”
He encouraged people to continue to donate to the “valued community project” by using findmeagrant and searching for Douai.
He thanked Beenham-based The Barn Partnership, in its work of designing, obtaining planning and getting the project ready to start.
