SIDMOUTH'S new £15,000 outdoor gym is ready to use! East Devon District Council has been working hard with Sidmouth Town Council to provide residents with the free-to-use outdoor gym that they wanted.

There will be a grand opening event on Sunday 2 November from 10.30am to 11.30am. There will be free lessons from a personal trainer on how to get the best out of the new equipment, as well as free circus skills on offer!

Having an outdoor gym in Sidmouth was proposed and chosen by the local community. Last year Sidmouth Town Council and EDDC asked community groups and others to put forward their ideas as to how £250,000 of sports funding accumulated from recent housing developments in the parish of Sidmouth (Section 106 money) should be spent.

Winning ideas

These ideas were then taken out to residents and they got to vote on which ones they wanted to happen in the parish of Sidmouth. One of the winning ideas was to spend £15,000 on free-to-use outdoor gym facilities.

A working group from Sidmouth Town Council then decided the gym equipment will be best placed clustered together in the Stowford area, on a patch of green open space on Stowford Rise just before the Stowford Community Centre and Waitrose.

Residents got to choose from three different designs for the outdoor gym at voting events at the Sidmouth Duck Derby and Armed Forces Day, the design with the most votes is the one that has now been installed and will be looked after by EDDC. The other projects that proved the most popular with residents are all being progressed: • A cycle route linking some residential areas with the Woolbrook area, in particular to allow easier cycling to school and college. Receiving £100,000.

• Improvement of Sidmouth Rugby Clubs two pitches and training area at Sidford. This would level the field and put in a drainage system. Receiving £40,000.

• Levelling the current cricket outfield and refurbishing the practice nets at Sidmouth Cricket Club. Receiving £25,000.

• Replacing the broken training lights at Sidmouth Amateur Football Club. Receiving £1,600.

• Adding an all-weather strip to the edge of the cricket square at Sidbury Cricket Club. Receiving £9,000.

• A new all weather multi use games area in central or lower Sidmouth including markings and goals for sports such as basketball, netball, five a side football and skill walls. Receiving £60,000.

Stay healthy

Councillor John Hollick, Chairman of Sidmouth Town Council, said: “This is an excellent new facility for residents to help stay healthy and active using monies paid back from recent developments and voted on by the public.”

Councillor Iain Chubb, EDDC Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “We are committed to making sure that local people have their say about where money from developments in their parish gets spent, and are one of the few local authorities that do so. This is an excellent free of charge facility for Sidmouth, provided by Sidmouth Town Council and EDDC working in partnership. Thank you to all the residents that came out and voted for the projects as well as those who put forward the idea originally”.