FRESH plans to put aside £200,000 to help build a new all-weather sports pitch at a city leisure centre are set to be discussed by councillors.

Worcester City Council is looking to build a new all-weather sports pitch at Perdiswell Leisure Centre and wants to give the plans an initial £200,000 boost which will give officers the chance to get a hold of government money to help develop the project and draw up designs for the new facility.

The council’s communities committee will be asked to back the plans at a meeting in the Guildhall on June 8.

Council reports say the £200,000 would be spent on continuing to develop a business case and detailed plans for the new pitch - which would go eventually back before councillors for the final seal of approval.

The commitment of cash would give the city council access to support from the Football Foundation – the charity responsible for channelling government, FA and Premier League money into grassroots football – to help develop its plans and draw out designs.

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The city council has been looking at several options to build new facilities at Perdiswell Leisure Centre including new five-a-side pitches, an all-weather pitch and a futsal arena.

A number of studies have been carried out in the last four years focusing on building the new facility – the latest of which suggested that the estimated cost had risen by £500,000 to around £3.4 million.

Earlier this year, Cllr Jabba Riaz warned that the city council “needed to see the irony” of it developing similar football facilities on land that was previously rejected as a new home for Worcester City FC.

READ MORE: Council told to 'look at irony' of building new football pitches at Perdiswell

READ MORE: Plans to build new football pitch in Worcester's Perdiswell

The city council’s planning committee rejected an application to build a new stadium for Worcester City FC at Perdiswell in 2018 – a decision that was later overturned on appeal by the government’s planning inspector.

The football club decided at the end of 2019 that it would no longer be looking to build a new stadium at Perdiswell and would instead be moving to the newly refurbished Claines Lane for the start of the 2020/21 season.