BUILDING work is well underway on the new £4.2 million Bolton Lads and Girls Club -- set to provide top class facilities to young people in the town.

The club, on Bark Street has been serving the town's youngsters for 100 years and thanks to a generous lottery fund allowing the club to relocate staff are confident it will remain for a hundred more.

The new look club, due to be completed in April next year, is to feature a large sports hall, a cyber cafe, a coffee bar with television and video wall, a dance and aerobics gym, a boxing gym, an arts and crafts area and an astro turf floodlitfootball court.

It was decided a new building was needed for the club after it tripled its membership from 500 to 1500 in four years. The derelict site of the former Navada Roller Skating Rink by Queens Park was earmarked as a perfect site and staff set about raising the funds.

Members received a lottery fund of £3.6 million and raised a further half a million pounds through fundraising events.

Jeremy Glover, club manager and youth worker said: "We realised we had to move or we would explode. The lottery donation was wonderful, we set a precedent as it is the largest single donation to be made to any voluntary organisation in the country.

"We managed to raise the remainder thanks to the generosity of people in the town. No other town in the country has a sports club like this and it is going to be something the whole town can be proud of.

"The people who founded this club a century ago did a good job as it has been here serving the kids for 100 years. We hope this new building will keep the future generations of children busy and happy for the next 100 years."

Mr Glover said the atmosphere in the club is so good because all the staff want to be there and are the lifeblood behind it. He said: "Laura Nuttall, the chairman has been very determined and incisive in seeing this project through from the start to the eventual finish and Turners of Preston who are building the club have been very generous and understanding."

The club is to be run by ten full-time and 30 part-time members of staff and 150 volunteers. It will be open every night from 3pm to10 pm for youths aged five to 21 years, who can enjoy any of the facilities for 30p for four hours.