Glusburn Cricket Club is looking forward to opening the new season in style with new purpose-built facilities.

This week the club heard that it had been given £194,202 by the Sport England Lottery Fund to contribute to its development project.

The money represents almost 90 per cent of the costs of rebuilding and modernising the club-house and opening it up for community use.

The total cost of the project is £219,459 and other funding has been secured to ensure that work can start straight away. It is hoped that the new pavilion will be completed by the end of April.

"The club decided that our facilities were insufficient to offer quality opportunities for the community and we ought to seek ways of improving the situation," secretary George Garland said.

"We only have a small clubhouse, in a poor state of repair, and it is unsuitable for a great deal of further cricket development. We wanted to improve facilities, but originally were just going to refurbish the building."

With advice from Sport England, the club drew up a sports development plan which spelled out the club's vision for the next three to four years.

"Our members got together and brainstormed what we needed to do to improve the provision of cricket in the community," chairman Geoff Seal added.

"We wanted to develop junior cricket, community involvement, women's cricket and sustain our existing links with Crown Spice, an Asian cricket team, playing out of Keighley."

Mr Seal said that at present the club held women's friendly matches but hoped to extend this to regular league fixtures.

The club also wanted to increase its coaching and four members have now qualified as county cricket coaches.

It hopes to introduce more junior sides over the next few years and has also already started "Kwik cricket" - a shortened and simplified version of the real game - for the local school children.

The emphasis of the plan has been community involvement and the club hopes to hire its facilities to interested groups, particularly the local schools.

"The new clubhouse will have changing rooms, showers, a central meeting area, a purpose built kitchen and is going to create a climate of development," Mr Garland said.

"Ultimately we want to improve the quality of cricket full stop. It won't happen overnight but bringing more people into the club might bring better players. We want to balance that with helping people enjoy the facilities."

The present pavilion was built in 1955, when the club moved to the grounds behind Glusburn primary school.

Since then the clubhouse has been upgraded, maintained and extended but has fallen into disrepair and maintenance costs are increasing.

The lengthy process of applying for grants has taken nearly two and a half years.

"We had to find the other £24,000 and it takes a lot of fundraising for a small club. We worked very hard linking with business and with the council," he said.

"We were very grateful for the support we have received."

Donations came from, among others, Skipton Rotary Club, Craven Trust, Craven District Council, Glusburn Parish Council, Skipton Building Society and the Craven Area committee of North Yorkshire County Council.

Fundraising events were held within the club and a sponsored walk raised almost £1,000. The club also received individual donations.

"The move to raise money was known within the community and people rallied round," Mr Garland said. "This is a considerable achievement for such a small club."

Mr Garland added that he would be interested in helping other clubs do the same, and would like to see a forum set up to share experiences in fundraising with other sports groups in the area.