PROPOSALS for a new sports pavilion in Nailsea have had to be scaled back after proving too expensive.

Footballers and cricketers were due to team up for a new purpose-built complex at Grove Sports Centre.

The proposed single-storey pavilion was due to be shared by Nailsea United Football Club and Nailsea Cricket Club, with changing rooms, storerooms, a food servery and a veranda for the cricketers.

Toilets for spectators and changing facilities for referees and umpires were also included.

When the plans went public in January it was expected to cost about �400,000.

But Spencer Lee, the football club chairman, said revised costings mean it would have cost at least �600,000.

He said: “It’s quite sad. For once there was a very exciting scheme that we tried to formulate with local groups.

“Once the cost was calculated, it became unachievable and, as such, we have to look for a solution involving smaller changing rooms.

“There is masses of support for the plan it and the club is one of the biggest in the South West. The town realises we have got to do something.”

Currently the football club has to use old temporary changing rooms and Mr Lee said they were not sufficient to support the club’s seven sides.

And the club, which won the Somerset County Premier League at the weekend, has been threatened with expulsion from the league if it fails to upgrade its facilities within four years.

Mr Lee said: “It is not a nice situation, these facilities a must have for us. To lose our league status and revert to the old changing facilities would be like going back 15 years. It would be horrendous.”

He refused to rule out working with the cricket club in the future, but said architects are currently working alongside North Somerset Council, Nailsea Town Council and the Nailsea Playing Fields Association to ensure the new plans are successful.