RAPID action to move forward a long-heralded project to bring much-needed football pitches and facilities to Tavistock was this week urged upon West Devon Borough councillors.

Borough deputy chief executive David Inman said the council had to ?move quickly? and finally get the project ? first proposed nine years ago ? off the ground.

The council is demonstrating its commitment to the project by setting aside a further £10,000 for preparing a bid for community football pitches at Crowndale ? with no guarantee of receiving the massive £900,000 Football Association grant needed to finance the scheme.

The proposed grant would amount to 80% of the total project cost of more than £1.1-million.

The Crowndale scheme would include a half-size rubber crumb all-weather pitch at Tavistock College, new changing blocks for Tavistock Football Club and four new pitches and improved facilities at the Crowndale Recreation Association site.

A report to the environment, leisure and community development committee meeting on Tuesday acknowledged there could be ?no certainty of the scheme achieving Football Foundation funding? .

However, borough deputy chief executive David Inman said he hoped the extra money would allow the bid to move forward.

?We have got a situation of having to do an awful lot of design work to get the Football Foundation to look at the scheme in the first place,? he said. ?There is a lot of hard work to do in a fairly short time.?

Mr Inman said he was hopeful the borough would co-ordinate the submission of a detailed grant bid to the Football Foundation, the grant-allocation division of the FA, by Easter.

?If everybody is going to have any realistic chance of delivering this scheme, we ought to move quickly,? said Mr Inman.

Mr Inman said a liaison meeting was held on Tuesday evening where groups involved in the project agreed to push ahead with making a grant bid to the Football Foundation. ?Everybody is working together to try and get this grant.?

Mr Inman said there was no guarantee the Football Foundation bid would be successful and planning permission and building regulation consent also had to be secured before any money would be awarded.

Cllr Dick Eberlie said he had ?warmly supported? the scheme for more football pitches in the town for many years.

?The sooner we get the pitches in Tavistock the happier people will be.?

Cllr Eberlie said he had recently received a letter from the mother of a nine-year-old boy living in Tavistock, who could no longer afford to take her son all the way to Staddiscombe to play football matches, and was hoping Tavistock would soon be able to provide pitches for its own teams.

Mike Jefferies, treasurer of the Crowndale Recreation Association, said the council?s support was ?excellent news?.

?Without the borough council?s support, there was a danger we would not have the funds to launch a bid. We should now be able to go forward,? he said.

Derrick Pethick, vice-chairman of Tavistock Football Club, welcomed the council?s decision to give financial backing to the project bid, which would provide new changing facilities for the club.

At a committee meeting last October, members agreed to put forward £20,000 ?risk money? to get preparation work for a grant bid off the ground. The cost of pre-bid architects? and consultants? fees has risen to £43,000, with £30,000 coming from the council, and the rest from the county council and the CRA.