On The Right Track (From Basingstoke Gazette)

On The Right Track

2:34pm Sunday 25th October 2009

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VICTORY is in sight for a Gazette-backed campaign to get a full eight-lane running track built at Basingstoke’s Down Grange sports complex.

It’s just over two years since The Gazette launched its Let’s Get The Club On Track campaign after highlighting how the upward progress of Basingstoke and Mid Hants Athletic Club was being hampered by the fact that their home track was not eight lanes all the way round.

Now, after a concerted campaign that was backed by athletes and politicians, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council has revealed proposals to spend £476,000 resurfacing and expanding the existing six-lane parts of the track in time for the 2012 London Olympics.

The changes would allow the successful Basingstoke and Mid-Hants Athletic Club to host competitions at home and top athletes, such as 400metres star Robert Tobin, will at last be able to appear in front of a home crowd in competitive events.

Councillor Keith Chapman, Cabinet member for sport and leisure, has been lobbying his party colleagues for the new lanes.

He said: “I think that the athletics club have an absolutely perfect case to justify raising the money to increase the size of the track from six lanes to eight lanes to meet national competition requirements.”

The borough’s Cabinet is now set to throw their weight behind the proposal when it meets next Tuesday.

Borough council leader Councillor Andrew Finney said: “The athletics club are going to get their extra lanes and in time for the London 2012 Olympics.”

Eight lanes would allow the senior men’s team, which competes in the second tier of national club competition, to host events in Basingstoke rather than travel to Abingdon.

Tobin, a silver medallist in Great Britain’s 4x400m relay at this year’s World Championships in Berlin, said: “It’s obviously frustrating that we have to travel 40 miles to have a home fixture at the minute.

Considering the level we are competing at, we should have the facilities in the town to be able to host those events.”

Tobin said more lanes would help with training too. “I had lane eight at the world championships,” he said. “You can’t practice running in lane eight if you don’t have eight lanes.”

The 25-year-old star said the improvements will mean that youngsters would be able to watch a better level of athletics. “It will inspire them and we will be able to see some top names in Basingstoke,” he said.

Athletics club life vice-president Ian Byett said the push for extra lanes at Down Grange has been a 10-year battle.

“We’re delighted,” he said, reacting to the news of the impending investment. “This will enable better quality events to be held down there.”

Byett added that the extra lanes would allow the seven club athletes who gained international recognition this year to compete in Basingstoke and the club could also try to attract some county championship events.

He said having the lanes built by 2012 was important because the club was hoping some of the athletes competing in London will want to come and train at Down Grange, which has been designated as a potential Olympics training camp.

Byett added that fundraising to add a stand beside the track is under way and £14,000 has been raised towards this so far.

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