Friends of Savile Park have worked tirelessly for a new community centre after the old one fell into disrepair – mainly due to a spate of devastating vandalism attacks in 2006.

On Saturday the group held a grand opening of the centre, which was funded by WREN and Wakefield Council.

The new building includes a small café, toilets, changing facilities and a meeting room that is available for hire, which the committee hopes can be a venue for a range of activities.

John Nash, chairman of Friends of Savile Park said: “We want to try to get the community to use it as much as we can, because at the end of the day it’s theirs.”

Friends of Savile Park formed in 2002 to regenerate the run-down park and have so far installed new benches, plants, boundary fences and a new play area which is used by children from across the district.

Mr Nash said: “What we’d really like next is to create a tennis club. We had one for 30 years but then it stopped. But we have tennis courts that are not being used. I’m putting a bid in, on behalf of our group, to make the tennic courts a multi-purpose area, for sports like basketball, five-a-side football as well as tennis.

“Our aim was always to get children to come to the park, because there was nothing for them to do. We now have children coming from Wakefield, where there’s Thornes Park, but they tell me they like what we have here.

“The multi-purpose area would hopefully encourage older children to come too, which would fantastic.”