Court Fields School could soon have a state-of-the-art artificial pitch installed after Wellington Town Council agreed to provide £150,000 towards the £1 million project.

At a special meeting of the council last week town councillors unanimously backed the funding following a report from town clerk Dave Farrow. The money will come from contributions from the developers of new homes at Bagley Road in Rockwell Green.

Andrew Govier, county councillor for Wellington and Rockwell Green, who has been on a working group with the school and local sports clubs welcomed the news.

He said: "This is fantastic news for the school and the wider sporting community in the town. Court Fields has improved dramatically over the last few years on the academic and pastoral side, and I am delighted that we have been able to provide this money. It will enable the school’s sports facilities to match the best in the area."

The report to councillors suggested that the additional funding could be available later this year and the money from the council would be needed in October or November this year, suggesting the project could be completed early in 2023. The facility would be used by the school during the day and available to other community groups in the evening, at weekends and during school holidays.

Cllr Govier added: "This is a really exciting project and I hope the promise of this funding will encourage the other funders to release the funds as soon as possible. I’m sure it will make a huge difference to students at the school and, in addition, it will be a further boost to the growing number of sports teams in the town.

"The beauty of a facility like this is that it can be used all day on Saturdays and Sundays, meaning that a lot more games can take place than if you are relying on a grass pitch which gets damaged when it’s wet."

As well as the new facility at Court Fields the council also supported Somerset West and Taunton Council’s decision to provide funding to Wellington rugby and football clubs for their plans to develop their facilities.

Cllr Govier added: "This is a really exciting time for local sports clubs. They provide so much to our local community and it is great that the funding has been found from developers. Local people are rightly frustrated that we seem to be inundated with new houses, apparently without the accompanying infrastructure, and it is good when new facilities can be provided without using taxpayers’ money.

"We were pleased to hear that there will hundreds of thousands of pounds more coming from other sites over the next few months. This is great news for the town."