Sports club nets new kitchen thanks to funds from North East business

Forest Hall Young Peoples Club, in East Palmersville, hosts matches for more than 20 football teams from Forest Hall Football Club's junior and senior sides, the Forest Hall Dazzlers disability teams, and recently West Allotment Celtic FC.

As well as being used to prepare and sell refreshments on match days, the club’s kitchen facilities are also used to help young players and other visitors develop life skills by showing them how to prepare and cook meals.

Having been installed more than a decade ago, the kitchen has started to show its age, and no longer provides the capacity to meet the demands being placed upon it right through the week.

But now, a £5,000 grant from the Banks Community Fund has enabled the club to commission local contractors Wayne McDine Joinery and All Weather Windows to build and install a purpose-built new kitchen and serving window.

Alongside its footballing activities, Forest Hall Young Peoples Club is also home to a number of other sporting and community activities, including the Forest Hall Boxing Club, craft sessions, a games club and a number of private functions.

Samantha Corbett, pavilion supervisor at Forest Hall Young Peoples Club, said: "Our existing kitchen has served us well, but it’s become increasingly obvious that it needed to be upgraded, especially with more people being here on match days and lots of different groups wanting to access it for their various activities.

"As with any community club like ours, the last two years has put a lot of pressure on our finances, and we would have had to almost certainly just carried on making the best of what we’d got without the Banks Group’s generous support.

“Most of our groups are back fully up and running now, and we have others that want to use the club in the new year, so being able to offer them these excellent new facilities will be a real bonus for all of us.”

Chris Kelsey, communications manager at the Banks Group, adds: “Forest Hall Young Peoples Club epitomises everything that a grassroots sports club should be and has a positive impact on the local community that goes well beyond its football pitches.”