Please give your urgent support to Malton School. Malton School needs modern in-door sports facilities, as its only facility at the moment is its gymnasium, which is not adequate for many indoor sports such as Badminton.

The School wants to apply for a lottery bid which, if successful, will give the public use of the facility outside school hours and school terms.

Ryedale District Council wants to make a lottery money bid for a dry sports centre in Malton, but unfortunately this has run into difficulties.

First it was suggested that there were two possible partners for the project: the School and the Malton Sports Association – and that the school had lost interest. Then the School told the council that they had not lost interest, and the Sports Association made it clear that what they wanted was something quite different, and that they were not in competition with Malton School.

In the meantime, the planners have come up with a scheme to build the sports hall on the “Woolgrowers’site”.

Now the cold facts are these: it has always been accepted that no dry sports center can be viable, if it is only used by the public – that is why the policy was always to look for a partner. A school is a natural partner for a scheme of this kind, and indeed I know of no dry sports hall of the size we are talking about which has received lottery funding, unless it is one which is jointly used with a school. Further, no school is going to make very much use of a dry sports center, unless it is immediately accessible. There is no point in wasting valuable lesson time walking long distances in crocodile, and anyway, crocodiles are forbidden nowadays on health and safety grounds, and so pupils would have to be bused at unacceptable expense. So neither Malton School nor Norton College are likely to make much use of either the “Woolgrowers’ Site” or the Rugby Field site.


If, on the other hand, the sports hall is built in the grounds of Malton School, the education authority will be responsible for 40% of the running costs, and the building will be in continuous use in school time by the school as well as out of school hours, by the public.

THERE WILL BE A PUBLIC CONSULTATION AT THE MILTON ROOMS ON SATURDAY 19TH MARCH. PLEASE GO AND GIVE YOUR SUPPORT TO THE SCHOOL