EXPERTS will work out the cost of a new athletics track in Winsford.
Sports clubs last week picked Scotland based consultants Sports Labs Limited to draw up plans for the first item on their wish list for an overhaul of Knights Grange.
Taxpayers are set to foot the £11,000 bill for their services.
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"It's a big step," said Brian Hall, chairman of Knights Grange User Develoment Association (KGUDA).
"We spoke to a number of firms interested in helping us but Sports Labs were our preferred choice."
Sports Labs should sign a contract with Vale Royal Borough Council by the end of the month before sitting down with athletes to discuss what they need.
A planning application will follow.
"We will work with them on a detailed track design," said Harry Evans, chairman of Vale Royal Athletics Club.
"From that we can get some provisional quotes so we know how much the whole project could cost."
He hopes it will be less than the £630,000 figure Sports Labs came up with two years ago when they were asked by the borough council's social review committee to come up with a rough price.
A fund set up by the borough council and Winsford Town Council will pay them deliver a more exact estimate this time around.
"This is the first of a two-stage process," said Helen Pearce, the borough council's develoment manager.
"Sports Labs will get to the real nitty gritty of every last detail for an athletics facility, which has never been done here before."
She said their work would be done in around three months.'
Meanwhile the search for money to pay for the track goes on.
The council has yet to set aside cash in next year's capital programme, saying £550,000 earmarked for projects at Knights Grange was merely an aspiration'.
The sport's national governing body, UK Athletics, have made a track in Vale Royal a priority in their five-year plan. A facilities strategy for the period up to the 2012 Olympic Games identified Knights Grange as the ideal place for a six-lane synthetic track.
However they too say they have no money to spend.
"It's very frustrating," said Evans.
"I feel that we are closer now than we ever have been."
Council officers are working with the club on grant applications at the moment but most bids require a promise of match funding from the local authority to be successful.
Evans added: "Until we have a figure from the council we are unlikely to get anyone to give us cash but we won't be giving up just yet."
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