Work has officially started on a new state-of-the-art sports facility at Peebles High School.

The school, which is in the Scottish Borders, should see the centre up and running by April 2012 and will serve the school and the wider community.

As part of the project, a new indoor four-court games hall, a general purpose hall, fitness suite and classroom and changing facilities will be constructed, while outdoors, a new 2G synthetic pitch, sprint track and long jump track will be built.

There are also plans for a 3G sports pitch to be located on a site elsewhere in Peebles, but is scheduled to be carried out within the next few years.

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The sports facilities have been designed by the council’s in-house Architects and will be built by GRAHAM Construction.

Speaking at a sod-cutting ceremony on Monday, Councillor Vicky Davidson, Executive Member for Culture, Sport, Youth and Communities, said: "This is a major investment by SBC and sportscotland in sports facilities for the Peebles area which will benefit pupils, and local people who will have use of the facilities out-of-hours."

Stewart Harris, Chief Executive of sportscotland, added: "It is wonderful to see the work on the new facilities at Peebles High School getting under way and, once completed, they will provide a fabulous home for the area’s Community Sport Hub.

"sportscotland’s investment of £500,000 into the new facilities will help to increase participation, as well as club and community development throughout Peebles, and we are really looking forward to the project’s completion.

"As a key legacy component of the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games, sportscotland is committed to developing 150 Community Sport Hubs across all 32 of Scotland’s local authorities by 2016 by investing £1.5 million of Lottery funding each year."

(JP/CD)