THREE of the volunteers who were the driving force behind Royal Wootton Bassett’s two new sports grounds have been recognised with civic awards.

Paul Harrison, Chris Elias and Mark Wightman led the teams that worked for more than a decade, overcoming obstacles including the financial crash of 2008, to ensure the rugby club’s new home and the sports association’s complex.

The projects ran in tandem, but the end result according to rugby club chairman Chris was “two fantastic sports facilities with about 50 acres of the best sports grounds in Wiltshire”.

He said the club had wanted to move from its old ground at Woodshaw because it was too small, but getting through the planning system had been a challenge.

“We stuck at it and at the end of the day it was almost a £1.5 million project,” he said.

“It is fantastic really. If I look at the rugby club now, apart from the bar staff and cleaners, everybody else that works there is voluntary - the guys who look after the pitches, the people who cook the food, the coaches – they are all volunteers.”

Membership of the club had doubled to 800 since the move and next month it was due to host the RFU Women’s cup finals with top teams arriving from all over the country.

Paul was proud and humbled by the award, but stressed it belonged to everyone involved.

He said: “It is an extraordinary achievement by a voluntary-run organisation.

“I’m very proud to have the award in my name, but I am enormously proud of what the sports association has achieved.”

He explained the sports association and the town’s football, tennis, cricket and running clubs first looked at relocation in 2002 before beginning serious negotiations with developers three years later.

Land prices nose-dived in 2008 and the goalposts were moved when developers refused to pay the agreed price for their old ground and a deal had to be renegotiated.

And even at the end there were delays when a contractor went bust.

They had been at the old site, gifted to the town by Maj Buxton, since the 1920s.

“What we have done is enhanced that legacy,” he added.