FOR the past 14 years Pershore and District Sports Club has been trying to relocate to a larger site so that it can expand its various sports sections and introduce new sports and better facilities to the town.

At present half the club's membership is based at its Tennis Centre on the Pershore College campus, its hockey section is obliged to play all home games on the Evesham High School Astroturf and only cricket, squash and skittles continue to be played on the Defford Road site.

An opportunity now exists to move from the present four-acre site next to the Cottage Hospital to a purpose-built 17-acre location at Pershore College. The move could generate two cricket pitches, two new squash courts, two extra floodlit tennis courts, an artificial hockey pitch, a fitness centre and a new clubhouse. Such facilities would also be of benefit to the college's students and its conference trade, further enhancing its fine reputation.

Two of the sections, cricket and tennis, have developed county-wide reputations for excellence in the field of junior development. The 60-80 junior cricketers who regularly attended Friday night training sessions and the 45 junior matches completed in a rain-affected summer are testimony to the efforts of club members. Success, however, means greater demand for more matches and a desperate need for a second pitch.

Since its move to the college in 1998 the tennis section has gone from strength to strength. Even in January no fewer than 90 juniors, most of whom were non-members, were involved in Saturday coaching sessions at the club. Only last week the club's Easter junior camps were a great success while the Pershore Junior Tournament attracted entries from well beyond the county-borders and still produced local winners.

We are faced with the dilemma of many sports clubs nationally who are trapped on sites no longer adequate for present-day requirements. The only way the club can move forward and provide new and better facilities is by selling its present site for housing. No town should willingly give up its green spaces but, unlike the other green areas in the town such as Abbey Park and the river meadows, the sports club site cannot be used by the general public and is barely visible from the roads which border it.

We hope that district planners and local and district councillors will appreciate the lasting benefit to the area that can be achieved if two of the town's main institutions - the Sports Club and the College - combine to create new opportunities for those interested in sport. In view of the genuine concern in the town about the lack of facilities for young people and the growing problem of drugs abuse it would be disappointing if our wish to relocate did not receive widespread support among the public and the town's elected members.

PETER CORBISHLEY, Chairman, Pershore Sports Club, Defford Road, Pershore.