A BRAND new £70,000 multi-use games area has opened at the Bourne Academy in Bournemouth.

The superb new resource can be used for a variety of sports such as football, basketball, tennis and much more, for both school pupils and the community.

The multi-use games area (MUGA) and ongoing surrounding landscaping work has been funded primarily by The Talbot Village Trust with additional contributions from the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Valentine Charitable Trust and Bournemouth Borough Council.

The renovated facilities, which included installing astroturf and floodlighting on the sports hard court area, will mean students can now play sport outside no matter what the weather and without standing water after rainfall.

Cherry Bear and Matt Divine form AFCB Community Trust officially opened the MUGA with George Meyrick from The Talbot Village Trust and the school's business director Caroline Gobell and principal Mark Avoth.

School business director Caroline Gobell, who was instrumental in the funding for the MUGA, said: ‘We are absolutely delighted to announce the refurbishment of our multi-use games area.

"The new astroturf and floodlighting will make a fantastic difference to our students and surrounding community users, both in terms of standard of performance as well as increased hours of play.

"None of this would be possible without the huge support of our incredibly generous donors and our brilliant site team for putting it all together. A big thank you to them all.’

According to Ms Gobell the project has been made possible thanks to a number of incredibly generous individual donations as well as substantial grants including £50,000 from The Talbot Village Trust.

With the extra hours of light provided by the newly installed floodlights there are plans to increase the number of extra-curricular clubs as well as providing the wider community with an opportunity to hire the facility during evenings, weekends and holidays.

Anyone interested should email vicky.spence@thebourneacademy.com.