A ten year journey for a new 3G playing pitch on the Ards Peninsula has reached a conclusion, after local councillors finally agreed to the new facility.
Elected representatives at a recent Ards and North Down Council committee meeting tussled over whether a debate surrounding a decision for a new pitch for Portavogie should be made in public or behind closed doors.
With DUP votes the debate was made public, and after initial disagreement in the chamber over whether the matter should be deferred, by the end of the committee meeting all the parties had rowed in behind a proposal for the council to fund a new 3G pitch at Brandon Park in the village, to be used by the local team Portavogie Rangers, seniors and juniors.
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DUP Councillor Robert Adair, a resident of Portavogie, proposed the Community and Wellbeing Committee agree to the creation of the new pitch, after a council officer recommendation to do so. He said: “This project has been on the council agenda since 2013. Ten years ago I proposed on this very seat that the council provide funding to deliver a 3G pitch for Portavogie.
“The project has seen many hurdles and setbacks, they have been well documented, but we are not looking to the past but rather to the future here. Since then the need has changed. When I originally brought this to the council, there were 250 children associated with Portavogie Rangers football club, and now that number has risen to almost 400. Not to mention the senior team. The need has gotten greater.
“The children don’t just come from Portavogie, they come from across the Ards Peninsula, as well as Newtownards and Bangor, for the youth facilities offered. It is a cross community club that attracts rights across our borough.”
He added: “The current facilities in New Harbour Road are no longer fit for purpose, and due to the volume of use, the service has worn out, and the pitch is almost in an unplayable condition.
“Unless investment comes then we cannot sustain the facility for sporting excellence. It no longer meets the need for the sporting community in the Ards peninsula. It is an issue bigger than politics, and should unite us all.”
He said after the committee: “I was successful in making sure that there was transparency in relation to the discussion this evening. Rather than being debated behind closed doors I felt it was important that those who have been fighting for the pitch heard what was being said. No doubt this impacted on how people actually voted.
"Let’s hope that there will now be some momentum in the delivery of the project and the young people of Portavogie and the wider Peninsula will enjoy the new facilities in the not too distant future.”
The decision will go to the full meeting of Ards and North Down Council next week for ratification.
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