A £20 million state-of-the-art community sports complex is planned for Leigh.

And the dream stadium -- catering for rugby league, soccer and athletics -- has come a step closer after a meeting of the town's major sporting representatives.

The Leigh and District Sports Development Partnership, Wigan and Leigh College, Leigh secondary schools and Wigan Council have formed a "strategic group" to investigate the feasibility of developing major new community sports facilities on the former Xanadu site at Pennington.

It would involve a new stadium for Leigh Centurions RL side and Leigh RMI soccer club, new facilities for Leigh East ARLFC, a new athletics track together with indoor sports, fitness and medical accommodation.

A key part of the scheme would be to develop the specialist sports courses of Wigan and Leigh College at the site and to incorporate college facilities within the stadium.

The idea, pioneered by Leigh MP Andy Burnham, has been enthusiastically welcomed by all the sports bodies involved in the town. They have all agreed to work together to achieve the common goal of creating a state of the art complex for the town.

Council chiefs say the first essential element will be to assemble sufficient funding from land and grant sources to cover what is likely to be a sports and education complex costing in the order of £15m-£20m.

The key to this is likely to be the sites of the present Hilton Park and Leigh East grounds being redeveloped and the proceeds being ploughed back into the new facilities at Pennington.

Trevor Barton, chairman of the Leigh and District Sports Development Partnership, said: "This project provides a fantastic opportunity to develop something of real value to everyone in the Leigh area who has an interest in sport."

Mr Burnham added: "These plans are very exciting. They would give Leigh something we can really be proud of and provide a great resource for the whole community."