Inverness athletics track upgrade begins today
facility scheduled to reopen in six weeks after £130,000 facelift
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Work to upgrade an athletics track in Inverness will start today.
The Queen’s Park stadium closed its gates yesterday in preparation for its £130,000 facelift, which is being funded by Highland Council and the Inverness Common Good Fund.
The track at Bught Leisure Centre was originally opened in 1984 with six lanes before being upgraded to eight lanes several years ago.
Despite the best efforts of ground staff to prolong its life, Inverness Leisure feels it is now time for an upgrade.
It is scheduled to be reopened in six weeks, on August 10, almost 25 years to the day when it was opened.
However, bosses have said the work is weather-dependent and they hope the track can be reopened in just four weeks.
James Martin, general manager of Inverness Leisure, said: “The Queen’s Park track really is an integral part of the facilities at Inverness Leisure and I think both myself and the users of the track would recognise that through the dedication and commitment of our groundsman we have substantially lengthened the life of the track, otherwise these works would have been required much sooner.
“However, we realise that in order to maintain a high level of service provision the time has come where refurbishment is the only option.”
Charlie Forbes, president of the home club Inverness Harriers, which is based at the leisure centre is but temporarily relocating to Charleston, said: “We are all really excited about the developments at Queen’s Park and look forward to getting back to our home ground to see the new improvements.
“We understand the new track effectively has two home straights that the photo finish timing system can operate, which now means that for big athletics events, we can actually choose which direction we will run on the track depending on the prevailing winds on the day.
“Being able to do this could really help some of our athletes develop their own standards and hopefully achieve some improved personal bests.”
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