A major redevelopment project has begun at the Banbury Road North Sports Ground in north Oxford to build two new floodlit artificial grass pitches.

The ground is the home of Oxford Hawks Hockey Club, who have been developing the project for the past three years.

But when the work is completed, hopefully by May, it will not just be Hawks that benefit.

Oxford is now one of 12 junior regional performance centres for hockey in the UK.

Hundreds of Oxfordshire youngsters will be able to use the pitches for county and area age-group training and matches.

Other sports teams, such as Oxford United, will also be able to use the facility.

Planning permission was obtained from Oxford City Council in May, and by the end of the summer funding arrangements had been formalised.

Once negotiations were concluded with the Oxford City Council, the club’s landlords, work was able to start last month.

It is not just the pitches that will be new, with a major refurbishment of the Sports Ground under way.

Project manager Neil Biggs said: “In addition to two state-of-the-art new pitches, we are also improving the car parking and access road arrangements at the ground, which necessitates the building of two new tennis courts so that two existing courts can be made over to car park.

“So the total project cost is going to be around £850,000, and bringing the whole project together has been very challenging.

“However, we are certain that it will all prove to be very worthwhile and the city of Oxford will have superb and much-needed new sports facilities that will be available for use by the wider community.

“We will be working closely with the Sports Development team at Oxford City Council, who will partner the club to ensure that the wider community is able to gain access to the facilities.

“The pitches lend themselves mostly to hockey and football, but other sports can also be played on them.”

Two partnership schools – Magdalen College and Oxford High – are supporting the capital funding of the project in return for guaranteed usage rights of the new facilities.

And grant awards have been secured from England Hockey and the National Hockey Foundation.

“England Hockey have been very supportive of the project, which was one of around only 20 projects across the country that received awards under the national governing body’s Capital Investment Programme,” said Biggs.

“England Hockey received over 120 applications under the CIP, requesting £23m of awards with a portfolio cost in excess of £130m.

“With only £2.7m of funding available under the CIP, Hawks faced stiff competition to win funding, and we were grateful to receive an award of £165,000.

Biggs added: “The National Hockey Foundation were also very helpful, making an award of £70,000 in return for Hawks agreeing to provide use of the facilities for the development of hockey in local schools and for junior development and academy centres, which provide coaching for youngsters across Oxfordshire.

“We have a thriving junior section at Hawks, and we are committed to promoting the sport to a wide cross-section of youngsters in Oxford.”

All being well, and subject to the weather, work on the two pitches should be completed by the middle of March, and all work on the site is scheduled for completion by the middle of April.

City councillor, Mike Gotch, said: “Congratulations to Neil Biggs and his team for achieving exactly the sort of collaboration between a local authority and an active sports group that central government is keen to promote, particularly at times of financial restraint.”