Lincoln Wellington Athletics Club believes a new indoor training facility would help it keep producing possible Olympic athletes.
It would allow the club, which was founded in 1911, to cope with a growing number of members and combat harsh winter weather.
There are more than 500 athletes aged between eight and 88 who train each week on the outdoor track at Yarborough Leisure Centre.
The president of Lincoln Wellington, Terry Timmis, said: “We get so crowded. We’ve got things going on all over the place and the lighting here isn’t brilliant so there’s a safety issue with trying to get all the groups on the track at the same time.”
The club has the goal of an indoor facility, which would also allow the athletes to train high jump and long jump throughout the winter, but there isn’t a clear plan in place to achieve this due to financial restraints.
Rob Lewis has been a coach for 36 years and said: “We used to take minibuses to meetings but that became too expensive so now everybody makes their own way.
“There’s no indoor facility so we have to tough it out in the winter months and our track is notoriously very windy.”
Despite this, the club has produced several successful international athletes including Abbie Donnelly, who recently finished third at the European Cross Country Championships and 17-year-old Mabel Akande, who won bronze in the Women’s 60m at the UK Indoor Championships last weekend.
To find out more about the club and how to join, visit its website here.
