AMBITIOUS plans to create multi-million sports facilities in Skelmanthorpe have got even grander.

The project by Parkgate Sports and Community Trust to build a number of sports pitches, a club house and an environmental centre has taken another step forward.

The £3m scheme has been held up for more than a decade by complicated land ownership issues.

A key access route was agreed last April and now the total site has been secured after councillors agreed to lease the trust 22 acres of land off Bailden Way.

And a week after celebrating the decision, trust chairman Christopher Ward said the plan had more than the doubled in cost after two more pitches were added to the scheme.

And Mr Ward said the British Amateur Rugby League Association had already expressed an interest in using the facility and talk of it becoming a centre of excellence had been mentioned.

He said: “We’re very excited, we’re now going to incorporate two rugby pitches, an FA standard soccer pitch and two training pitches.

“It just needs to go through the planning system now but that’s being done as matter of priority.

“We have costed the whole project and it’s gone up quite dramatically to about £6.5m.”

The grand design is also set to include an outdoor climbing wall and a clubhouse with seating to watch the matches.

An environmental educational centre powered by a mini-hydo electricity station will be built at the top of the site and it is hoped it will be run by students from Shelley College.

Detailed planning is underway and Mr Ward said he now had a full time fundraiser working on raising the substantial sum required.

The 12-year delay in starting the project began after crucial land off Station Road was locked up in a row with local businessman Brian Dunford.

The land was earmarked for housing and community use and was sold to Mr Dunford, of Woolley Commercial Properties, on a “gentleman’s agreement” that he would level some of the land for pitches and construct the shell of a community centre.

He sold a large chunk of the land for more than £1m to Jones Homes for 90 houses but then built six industrial units on another section of the site and refused to give access onto the neighbouring Kirklees plot.

Over the years there have been many public and private protests over the deals but last April Kirklees Council made progress and a deal was with Mr Dunford was finally agreed.