Beverley RUFC – Car Park investment

Beverley RUFC have invested over £20,000 into extending their car parking facility onto the grass alongside pitch 1 at Beaver Park to relieve the car parking congestion problems that visitors, members and neighbours have been experiencing.

The club has used an environmentally friendly product from Groundtrax based in Harrogate. It integrates into the grass/soil, allowing the grass to continue to grow through but provides a strong platform that will distribute vehicle weight load to sustain the parking of up to 40 more vehicles.

Chairman, Brian Gilbert explained “our existing car park capacity is approximately 60 vehicles and with this success of the club in recent years we have not been able to accommodate all of the visitors and members especially on a Sunday when the mini and junior and Colts teams are playing, this is a significant investment which the club itself is funding, by dipping into the fundraising pot we have for a new clubhouse. The committee agreed this was a critical problem and was affecting our neighbours who we’re being inconvenienced by overflow car parking onto neighbouring streets, we’ve listened, and we’ve acted.”

Vice Chairman, Neil Botham, who ran the project was particularly pleased with the volunteer community within the club that turned up to help to install the reinforced pavers across the 1000sq/m area. Neil commented “We are a club run by volunteers that don’t pay players and has substantial operating costs that membership and bar revenues need to cover. We depend heavily on our committed volunteers that have once again turned out in force to make a big job manageable, thank you to all that contributed.”

President, Carol Inness added “We struggle to raise funds for vestments like this, we have very few business sponsors and funds were not available from the RFU or the local authority. Hence, we have had to take this money from our investment pot for a new clubhouse. In a way, we are a victim of our own success. Almost doubling the car packing capacity has got to be an improvement for everybody attending the club and our neighbours.”

Beverley is flying high at the moment in the counties Yorkshire 1 league and have a successful 2nd team and a newly instigated women’s team that played their first match earlier in February. They also have a thriving mini and junior section with teams operating at every age group. There is a positive buzz across the club at the moment and a sense that things are getting steadily better on all fronts, the doors are open to all visitors and players. Why not come along and support your local community rugby club?