A HOCKEY festival marked the opening of a multi-use sports area that will vastly improve training facilities for clubs across Bolton.

The new all-weather facilities at St James' School in Farnworth hosted the festival to celebrate Bolton's sports and PE programme, which was made possible thanks to a £3.47 million Lottery grant.

Dominic Gavin, community sports development officer, said: "The scheme has been fantastic. The new centre should be full nearly every hour of the day through the summer, so it is a fantastic development for the local community."

The money from the Big Lottery Grant has allowed the school to open the centre to a range of sports clubs, including cricket, tennis and American football teams to get more people in the area involved in sport.

Nine teams from five schools took part in the hockey festival, which was jointly won by St Andrew's CE School, Over Hulton, and St Bede's CE School, Morris Green.

Mr Gavin said: "The day's events were run solely by pupils in Years 10 and 11, who are doing the sports leadership accreditation.

"They ran the umpiring and kept the scoring, which meant teachers could sit back and watch."

Following its success, the festival is set to be held as an annual event.