Site preparation will soon get underway on Delta's newest artificial turf playing field.
Council last week approved a contract worth just over $615,000 for the excavation of Ladner's Dugald Morrison Park. Work is to begin this month.
A $5 million project, the new Dugald Morrison synthetic turf field and washrooms are to be finished and ready for play by August 2014.
The project also involves a new softball diamond at Hawthorne Park and baseball diamond at Cromie Park.
To speed up construction of the new Dugald Morrison field, council recently allocated $500,000 from surplus funds as an advance for the already approved budget.
A staff report notes that being able to tender the site excavation work early would allow the contractor to effectively excavate the site during the dry months this year.
Delta would also benefit by taking advantage of the long construction season in the Lower Mainland when developers are searching for sites to dump structural fill material from their construction sites, the report states, adding that much of the material to fill the park site would be free or cost little.
The Delta Secondary Parent Advisory Council last year lobbied for a new turf field at their Ladner high school, instead of one at Dugald Morrison.
The parent advisory council met with the parks and recreation department to discuss the idea of a partnership between Delta and the school district. However, Delta council concurred with the parks department that having a municipal field at the high school wouldn't fit the criteria of sport user groups having "unfettered access evenings and weekends and do not wish to compete with school programs for use of the fields."
The Delta school district later announced it was planning to build its own covered sports facilities.
