Bracknell set to renew athletics track despite revenue cuts
Bracknell Forest Council is expected to score a major win this year by investing in an ambitious renewal of the running track at Bracknell Leisure Centre.
Although politicians are having to make cuts to services like buses, capital budgets are separate from revenue, so the council can still invest in sports facilities. That comes even as there is a ten million pound deficit on revenue spending because of special needs provision.
The council is putting more than £650,000 into local leisure facilities — including the running track at Bracknell Leisure Centre and essential maintenance at Coral Reef Waterworld and Downshire Golf Course.
The running track has a polyurethane-based surface often called a ‘tartan’ track (‘Tartan’ is a brand name widely used like ‘Hoover’ or ‘Biro’). Bracknell’s track began as a cinder surface — compacted crushed coal residue, ash and clay — before a 1960s synthetic runway was in use here by May 1968, ahead of the full ‘tartan’ track at Crystal Palace later that year.
The Sports Centre next door opened in 1967. A new synthetic track and stadium, originally with a Resisport surface, were opened by Neil Macfarlane MP, Minister for Sport, on 9 September 1984 after a donation from John Nike of Binfield. The track was resurfaced in polyurethane and reopened in October 2000; an internal runway was grassed over and no longer exists.
Bracknell Athletic Club has its club house next to the track. In 1998 there were tentative plans for an indoor 200m track on the site, but those plans never materialised.
The draft budget was approved at a cabinet meeting on 11 February and is expected to be passed at full council on Wednesday 11 March.
Ted O'Neill, Local Democracy Reporter
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