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Yarm School invests £2.5 million in sports facilities

Yarm School, in Stockton, has announced a £2.5 million investment in its rowing and sports facilities, which has been approved by Stockton Borough Council.

The school intends to construct a superb new boat house, boat storage facility and a full-sized floodlit all-weather sports surface for hockey and tennis.

Former Yarm School pupil, Kat Copeland, brought home an Olympic gold medal from London 2012.

Since then, rowing at the school has become even more popular with over 100 pupils involved in the sport.

They enter rowing competitions all over the country with regular success, cementing Yarm’s reputation as one of the country’s top rowing schools.

Adjacent to the boathouse will be a new, floodlit, full-sized artificial hockey pitch with the facility to accommodate nine new tennis courts in the summer months.

Plans for the boathouse and pitch were drawn up by Associated Architects, who also designed the school Yarm’s award-winning Princess Alexandra Auditorium.

The new boathouse will be on stilts, projecting towards the banks of the River Tees, providing a training facility for rowers, changing rooms, offices and a viewing gallery for events on the river and the astroturf.

It will house up to a dozen boats, including single sculls, as well as fours and eights.

Planning consent has now been granted for the building and the Board of Governors has now approved the plans.

The school will be inviting local building firms to tender for the project, with construction expected to commence in the February 2015 and to last until August 2015.

Yarm School’s Head of Rowing, Nathan Adams, said: “I am delighted that our new boathouse has now been given the green light.

“We are all really excited about it and I am pleased that it will help us to meet the increasing demands of the club’s popularity.

“Many Yarm pupils go on to gain representative honours at regional level for the North.

“Since 2006, Yarm has always had representation in the GB junior teams, including four pupils who rowed for team GB at the Youth Olympics, Sydney.

“Students also compete and win medals at many regattas and head of the river races up and down the country.”

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