These are exciting times at Bury St Edmunds as work commenced in earnest this week with a new 3-lane outdoor net facility that meets the highest ECB specifications.
The project has been more than two years in preparation, the fundraising commenced with the match in July 2021 against a team of England Legends that featured Mark Ramprakash, Devon Malcolm, Matthew Hoggard, Monty Panesar, and Alex Tudor. The game in front of around 800 spectators launched the appeal and thanks to funds remaining from John Williams ( who kindly donated money for the scorebox) the fundraising was off to a good start.
We are grateful to Councillor Patrick Chung and his colleagues on Bury Town Council for their donation. The Suffolk Foundation’s Sports and Miller Fund has provided £4,000 and more recently Councillor Richard Rout has also made a significant donation from his locality fund. We are also grateful to the England and Wales Cricket Board for committing funding toward the work.
More than 40 corporate and individual donations have taken the appeal close to the target of £70,000. We will continue the fundraising from now until the new cricket season.
In July the task of rerouting the electric supply was undertaken by A.C.Webb Electrical, we had to ensure that the electronic scoreboard was working while the electric supply was diverted. Ric Eastlea kindly blocked the water supply to the former Groundsman’s shed so that when removed to make space for the new facility the water was disconnected.
Removal of the old net structure took place in August with Ben Whittaker, Nils Carter de Jong, and John Nicol amongst those volunteers removing the old frame. We are grateful to Gary Smith and Simon Thearle who removed the old fence and John Nunn for removing the dead electricity cables.
Mark Finch of Finch (Elmswell) who is one of our sponsors removed the sheds and set about clearing the compound, this was followed by another key sponsor Steve Lumley who provided an excavator to not only clear the area but also remove surplus subsoil and material.
On Monday, October 2nd Exclusive Leisure commenced work on the foundations of the new facility, the company had been contracted by the England and Wales Cricket Board to provide significant additional facilities for the Hundred Competition which had delayed the start of this part of the work but in many ways with no cricket taking place and good weather apart from Monday’s downpour circumstances are ideal.
The new 3-lane outdoor nets will be of the highest standard totally enclosed for safety and with the most up-to-date surface the club have after consultation with senior players selected the highest quality available.
Work continues during October with further updates and photos to be posted.