AMBITIOUS plans for a new three-storey cricket pavilion on The Bourne Green funded by a mystery benefactor are moving full steam ahead after receiving the green light by Communities Secretary Sajid Javid.

Waverley Borough Council granted planning permission to replace the green’s current pavilion with a larger, more eco-friendly and versatile building in February 2016, and the council’s executive subsequently agreed to ‘appropriate’ the pavilion land last July.

But owing to the sensitivity of building on a registered village green, the appropriation also had to be ratified by the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Mr Javid, who after a long wait finally gave his full approval this month.

It means the project can now proceed in earnest, with building works set to get under way by the end of this summer with the pavilion expected to be ready for its grand opening around six months later.

Martin Lear, a councillor for The Bourne who has led the project alongside Andy Morse and Brian Copeman, said: “It’s been an immensely complicated process, but I’m relieved to say there are now no further approvals required and we can finally get on with it.

“The next steps are to complete the formal handover of the land from Waverley to the community interest company set-up to put in place the new building, and I’m hopeful that by August or September we will have begun the preparatory works and have it completed by spring next year.

“We’ve had a significant amount of help from huge swathes of the community which is fantastic, and of course we want to do this as quickly as possible with minimum inconvenience to people who live in the area.”

The current run-down pavilion will be demolished as part of the plans, with the new building to be constructed 19 metres further forward in order to protect the mature trees bordering the green.

It will be spread across three storeys with changing rooms in the basement, a meeting room, toilets and kitchen facilities at ground floor level and a first floor complete with bar, club room and a balcony overlooking the green.

Mr Lear added the new pavilion will serve the existing user groups - Farnham Runners, Bourne Blades youth football team and the Bourne Colts cricket club - “for the next five generations”, as well as allowing more space for other community groups to use the building. It will also boast significantly lower energy costs than its predecessor.

He continued: “It’s an unbelievable opportunity [to improve the facilities at The Bourne Green without spending any public money and the beauty of this is it will have facilities that are above and beyond what we’ve got at the moment.”