Crews are working on the $3-million Liverpool Community Sports Field at Liverpool Regional High School. (Rick Conrad)

There may be a little short-term pain this fall for some big long-term gain for Liverpool’s high school soccer teams as they wait for a new multimillion-dollar field and track to be completed.

Crews are working now on building the $3-million-plus Liverpool Community Sports Field at Liverpool Regional High School. It will feature the South Shore’s only all-weather, year-round track and a new artificial turf soccer field.

Kristopher Snarby, president of the Queens County Track Society which is leading the effort, said the field likely won’t be finished until November. And depending on the weather, the new rubberized track probably won’t be ready until early spring.

“They’re working hard, they have a camper on site and the crew’s actually living in the camper and working pretty long days,” Snarby said Tuesday.

“We’re hoping that the field will be done late October, early November and the track itself, it depends on weather in terms of when they can lay the track. So the track will either be done in November as well or it will have to wait till spring when things are little warmer. So things are coming together fairly well. We kind of had a pipe dream that the soccer field would be ready for this fall, but that’s not going to happen unfortunately.”

In the meantime, he said the high school’s boys and girls soccer teams are working with the middle school in Liverpool to use that field for practices. He said they’ll likely have to find another field outside Liverpool for their games. 

Despite having to wait a little longer than they’d hoped, Snarby says it’s gratifying to see the project coming together.

“There have been so many people pushing for this for so long, it’s nice to finally see the end result coming together. The contractors that are doing the work are doing a great job there. They’re working really hard to move along as fast as possible.

“It’s just really exciting to know that the community is going to have this facility in a few months. And it’ll be great to see people start to use it. I’ve had inquiries already from other areas who are interested in renting the field to have some higher level soccer taking place there. So that’s really positive. It’s just really exciting for sure.”

The track and field project got a $1.8-million funding commitment from the federal government, $1.2 million from the province and $250,000 from the Region of Queens municipality. 

Snarby said his group will be launching a private fundraising campaign in the next couple of weeks to cover other costs, such as a shot put and discus throwing area.

He said doing those separately from the main project is cheaper.

“The costs to do it as a whole project were extremely expensive. So we had to pull them out of the project and we’re still going to get them done, but they’re going to be quite a lot more cost-effective.”

Snarby said that as long as construction continues to go as planned, everything should be ready for use by March or April next year. 

“We’re looking forward to the end result.”

Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com

Minister Kim Masland announces funding for new athletic facilities at Liverpool Regional High. Photo Ed Halverson

New athletic facilities and a walking trail are coming to Liverpool Regional High School.

Public Works Minister and MLA for Queens Kim Masland announced a combined $2.75 million from three levels of government to replace the school’s existing soccer field with artificial turf and build a 400-metre-long gravel running track.

The new artificial turf field will resolve long-standing issues with drainage.

At Friday’s announcement Masland said Queens has a history of producing world-class athletes and construction of the new field will support future athletes by allowing them to train closer to home.

“The big thing for us is we want to make sure that we’re providing a facility that people can use in our community. We have amazing athletes. We talked a little bit today about Sarah Mitton and [in] the announcement we talk about our special Olympians,” said Masland. “Many of our athletes have to travel to Bridgewater to be able to adequately train, so this will be able to keep people home and also bring people here for events.”

LRHS Principal Todd Symes says the effort to replace the school field began about six or seven years ago.

“Students always went to other schools and were kind of jealous or envious of facilities in other schools had and then logistically, a lot of our students had to travel to participate, to have the same advantages that a lot of other areas already had,” said Symes. “So, the students themselves came up with an idea. They came up with the design to come up with a plan and they were adamant that they wanted something done. So, we had students that were with us for 3-4 years. They worked the whole time they were here to engage community members, to draw designs, to work with staff members, to initiate development of a non-profit society and they were the ones who started the dream.”

Symes says the current funding will build the track and field and students will be approaching the community to help raise another $200,000 to realize the entire vision, including a Mi’kmaw learning trail.

Masland says the tender to replace the track and field will be released later this fall and the new field is expected to be completed in 2024.

Damaged retaining wall on Shore Rd in Western Head. Photo Ed Halverson

Also announced Friday was $1 million in funding from the federal and provincial governments to protect two stretches of Shore Rd in Western Head which are dealing with erosion and flooding.

Work will include reinforcing an existing retaining wall and excavating existing rock and gravel to provide more protection against the effects of climate change.

Masland says work on that project will be performed by local Public Works staff beginning this fall and finishing in spring of 2024.

To hear the broadcast of this story click play below.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com