TWO sports centres in the borough are celebrating Olympic legacy funding boosts worth more than £149,000.

Weymouth College has secured £99,218 from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities Fund, while Osprey Leisure Centre on Portland has been awarded £50,000.

The funding will enable Weymouth College to refurbish two sports hall roofs that are creating major health and safety issues, make flooring repairs and install underground rainwater harvesting at its Redlands site.

The college will also purchase table tennis tables for use at its two sites.

Osprey Leisure Centre in Castletown has pledged to refurbish its leisure centre, create lift access to its upper floor building, a new ‘inclusive fitness’ gym that is disabled friendly and to turn the reception area into a welcome room with meeting facilities, disabled toilets and a disabled changing room.

Elsewhere in Dorset, Swanage Sailing Club secured £49,662 of the Olympic legacy funding to extend and improve its clubhouse.

Sport England’s chairman Richard Lewis said: “This fund has really hit the mark with sports clubs in south Dorset.

“It shows we’re offering the legacy that people want for their local community.”

Councillor Howard Legg, borough council spokesman for the Olympics and special projects, said: “It’s absolutely fabulous news.

“It’s nice to know Weymouth and Portland sports clubs are getting investment in a meaningful way from Sport England.”

Dorset’s trio are among 350 local community sports groups offered a total of £17.4million in Olympic legacy funding through the Inspired Facilities Fund.

The Inspired Facilities fund is part of the £135million Places People Play legacy programme, which community sports clubs across the country were invited to apply for to benefit from ‘the magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games’.

Every sports facility that receives funding will carry the London 2012 Inspire mark.

South Dorset MP Richard Drax is pleased with the funding.

He said: “Anything that provides a lasting legacy in Weymouth, Portland and the surrounding area following the Olympics is to be hugely welcomed.”

Improvement plans revived thanks to grant

PORTLAND’S £50,000 Olympic legacy funding has breathed new life into Osprey Leisure Centre’s plans to improve its disabled facilities.

The South Dorset Community Sports Trust-run centre in Castletown secured Sport England’s Inspired Facilities funding just weeks after its application for extra funding from the borough council was rejected.

At a full council meeting at the end of February, councillors ruled against providing the non-commercial leisure centre with £160,000 over the next five years or a one-off capital injection.

All councillors expressed support for the facility but many were reluctant to give more money than was originally agreed in a five-year plan when the centre opened. Volunteers and users at Osprey Leisure Centre told the Echo of their disappointment that the much-needed disability access works totalling £213,000 had been on hold.

But now general manager Nigel Williams said the Sport England money, combined with funding from the Olympic sailing village developer ZeroC and the centre’s own money will enable 75 per cent of the original plans to go ahead.

Leisure centre refurbishment works will include the creation of lift access to its upper floor building, a new ‘inclusive fitness’ gym and turning the reception area into a welcome room with meeting facilities, disabled toilets and a disabled changing room.

The gym and welcome area works should be completed by the end of June.

Mr Williams said: “It’s all really exciting, we’ve got lots of Paralympians living on Portland so the inclusive fitness will be great for them.”