EXCITING plans have been revealed for the creation of a new ‘family zone’ stand at a booming Borders rugby club.

Jed-Forest RFC aim to refurbish the 100-year-old small stand at Riverside Park with a £16k-plus revamp.

The stand has been in place for more than a century and has become run-down and close to being condemned as unsafe.

The club has a thriving mini-rugby section with over 100 members and the aim is to provide a fan zone for families to come and support games.

Riverside Park is used by Jed-Thistle for games in the 7s age group tournaments and Jedburgh Border Games also utilises the ground and clubrooms.

Refurbishing the small stand will enhance participants' and supporters' experience coming to these events and make for “a great atmosphere when it is being used”.

When members of Jedburgh Common Good Fund Sub-Committee met on Monday (May 27) they agreed to contribute just under half of the cost of the project, with the club footing the rest of the bill.

Club spokesman Billy Grieve said: “The application is for the refurbishment of the small stand, it’s becoming a wreck and it’s just been a lack of maintenance that this has happened and we are hoping to refurbish it and convert it into a family zone for match days.

“We have got over a 100 kids for the mini-rugby and we are hoping this will attract membership. As for the refurbishment itself we need to replace the roof and to replace a lot of the rotten timber and seating.

“We’ve done some exploratory work on the seating and we have found there are some structural issues underneath the seating. We plan to cover the seating with aluminium and make individual seating.

“Once we found there were structural issues we decided to phase back and put it back as is. The club was going to put up half the money if we could find the other half from the Common Good Fund.”

The work will be undertaken by local tradesman with a team of volunteers to help out too.