By James Johnson

Published at 10:49, Saturday, 21 July 2012

A cricket club is set to hold a fundraising event to help rebuild its pitch after it was damaged by hundreds of tonnes of rubble.

Threlkeld Cricket Club on June 23. Photographer Luke Winter said: "The flooding left thousands of tonnes of stone, gravel and debris scattered all over our pitch. The ground now is unavailable for the rest of the season."

Threlkeld Cricket Club’s pitch was decimated after flood waters deposited the rubble on the pitch last month and the club are now trying to compensate for this major setback.

The event at the club today will involve the Threlkeld Olympics, a pet show, zorbing – the sport of rolling downhill in an orb – a bouncy castle and climbing wall.

Club chairman Richard Allen hopes that the weather will hold and allow the club to raise as much money as possible.

He explained: “It’ll be a great fun day hopefully and this is something that will attract the kids and families in the village.”

Once the children’s activities have been done the club will host the annual summer dance.

The club and its surroundings were once named one of the five prettiest in the land by cricket almanac Wisden.

The pitch will not be useable until 2014 but Mr Allen is still hopeful that someone will take responsibility for the disastrous flood.

He said: “It’s very difficult to keep the club going without any games but we don’t have a target for fundraising.

“I believe that responsibility lies jointly with Cumbria County Council and the Highways Authority.

“Should that be proven we will be looking at them to pick up the tab.”

The land is used for local events, including schools sports days, as well as cricket. It is understood that the land nearby was last treated or dredged in 2006 after lobbying from the cricket club, but has not been dredged since.

Shortly after the flooding Mr Allen said that he estimated the cost of the damage was up to £100,000.

A Cumbria County Council spokesman said: “This area is not attached to any county council road structure and until it is clarified who is responsible we cannot spend public funds and resources working on the land when we do not know if it is our duty to do so.

“Taking any action on site before this clarification would also mean we’d be accepting liability. We hope to have clarification on who is responsible for the land as soon as we possibly can.”

Tickets for the cricket club dance, which begins at 7pm, cost £5 and are available on the door.

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk