Peterborough Lions Rugby Club is close to sealing a deal with Peterborough City Council to build a new base for itself on the old pitches of the demolished Bretton Woods Community School.

And ambitious bosses at the club, who are set to back the scheme with privately-raised cash, say the wider area also stands to benefit from the planned development.

Club chairman Andy Moore said the new facilities would also cater for cricket and tennis, as well as providing a clubhouse for social events.

He said: "Over the last five to 10 years we have been losing sports fields at Baker Perkins and Perkins, but this will mean positive action being taken with the council to keep these fields for sport.

"At the moment they are just open land, but with this development they will be used by far more people than they are now.

"Peterborough Lions have been looking for a new home for quite a while and this is a two-way offer. The council has offered the land and we have offered the facilities, and it's a harmonious relationship."

Peterborough Lions have spent the last three seasons at the East of England Showground and before that played at Posh's London Road ground for two years.

With its First XV plying their trade in East Midlands Division Four and a thriving academy catering for 250 youngsters, the club wants to make the move to a new permanent home.

It has set its heart on the 12-acre site at Bretton Woods, which closed in July last year

Mr Moore, who runs NClass Fabrication, is prepared to raise £1 million with club director Michael Kenny, owner of Empire Glass, to transform the playing fields.

They are proposing to lay out two rugby pitches and a cricket pitch, and to refurbish four of the existing eight school tennis courts.

The remaining courts are earmarked for conversion into a floodlit, all-weather playing surface, measuring 65 metres by 40 metres.

An 800-seat grandstand is also planned, containing a clubhouse and even a microbrewery to produce beer for on-site consumption by supporters.

Mr Moore said he hoped Peterborough City Council would shortly approve a deal with the club to allow them to hammer out a 60-year lease by the autumn. The club will then apply for planning permission.

In the meantime the club, which intends to share the new pitches with Westwood Rugby Club, has the go-ahead to set up temporary facilities in time for the new season.

City council cabinet member for community services Cllr Matthew Lee said: "We have been working together to look at the site at Bretton Woods and though no decision has been made yet, it's an excellent project and very exciting for the Bretton area."

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