TADLEY RFC has been given almost £50,000 of National Lottery funding to improve facilities at its Red Lane ground in Aldermaston.

The club will receive £49,800 from Sport England’s Protecting Playing Fields fund to turn unused land into a new pitch and dedicated training area.

The new facilities will be built alongside the club’s current pitches, with the money used to level and reseed the whole area, transforming it from stony wasteland into a real asset. Some of the cash will also be used to reseed the club’s second team pitch.

The club has 300 junior members aged from five to 17, who will benefit from the new training area. Work is due to start next spring, with the facilities ready for use in time for the 2014-15 season.

Roger Moffatt, chairman of Tadley RFC, said: “We have made great strides in updating our clubhouse recently and it is brilliant that we have been able to continue making improvements to our facilities.

“Being awarded this funding is a credit to everyone at the club who put a lot of effort in to the application. We are an ambitious club that wants to keep moving forward.”

Silchester Parish Council has also been awarded £13,532 from the Protecting Playing Fields fund, to level and reseed the surface of Silchester Common, which has become stony and uneven.

It is hoped that the work will be done in time for the 2013 cricket season.

Simon Mahaffey, of Silchester Parish Council, said: “The pitches and pavilion on the common are the only sporting facilities we have in Silchester.

“If we allow them to fall into a poor state of repair then people will have to go elsewhere to play, so we are very pleased to have secured this funding.”