Welsh unveil glittering new facility
A £2m ($3.32m) centre of excellence was unveiled by the Welsh Rugby Union on Thursday, claiming to boast the best facilities anywhere in world rugby.
A £2m ($3.32m) centre of excellence was unveiled by the Welsh Rugby Union on Thursday, claiming to boast the best facilities anywhere in world rugby.
The state-of-the-art facility will involve a major expansion of the current base used by the national team at the Vale Hotel, Golf and Spa Resort in Hensol near Llantrisant.
The indoor arena and the office accommodation there will now be used to exclusively house Welsh Rugby Union teams and backroom staff, while three new full-size pitches will be laid for exclusive use of Welsh Rugby Union teams, along with two half-pitches and a new artificial 3G pitch inside the indoor arena.
The development is the result of a three-way partnership, with investment from the Welsh Rugby Union, Leekes, the owners of the Vale Resort, and the Sports Council for Wales who have allocated a £1.5m National Lottery grant into the project.
Although the current location is already the training base for the Wales squad, the facilities are shared and some grass training sessions are held off-site at the Welsh Institute of sport, Cardiff.
Work on installing an upgraded gymnasium inside the centre has already started and it is in use during the preparation for the Invesco Perpetual Series. Work will begin immediately on a full renovation of the administrative facilities and the installation of all the new pitches which will be complete in 2009.
“We are creating a Centre of Excellence which will truly be the envy of the rugby world,” said WRU Chief Executive Roger Lewis.
“This will take Wales to the forefront of the professional game when it comes to providing the facilities needed to achieve success at international level.
“We were determined to make sure that the players of the present and the future have every chance of upholding the proud tradition and history of Welsh international rugby in the professional era as the game develops.
“I am very proud that the Welsh Rugby Union has been able to deliver this project and I am immensely grateful to the Sports Council of Wales, and in particular Phil Carling, Huw Jones and Helen Adams for their support and advice throughout the process which has led us to today. I would also like to personally thank Gerald Leeke and his team for helping to turn our vision into a reality.
“It has taken a colossal amount of effort to achieve this, but the benefit to Welsh rugby will be evident down the generations to come.”