MEMBERS of a leading rowing club are celebrating, after the long-running refurbishment of their clubhouse was completed.

The extension to Durham Amateur Rowing Club’s (ARC) headquarters, next to the River Wear, in Durham City, has increased the club’s storage capacity by more than half.

All its boats and equipment can now be stored in one place.

Funding for the £63,000 project has come from Sport England, members’ fundraising activities and a £10,000 grant from Banks Developments, through the Banks Community Fund.

Founded in 1860, Durham ARC has 230 members from across the North-East. It runs male and female crews in all age groups and two of its recent members, Jessica Eddie and Ian Lawson, have represented Great Britain at the Olympic Games.

A new £1m clubhouse was opened in 2007. The new boat storage unit, which was originally part of this scheme, was put on hold due to costs.

But club secretary Barry Hudson said: "We’ve continued to raise funds for the storage facility since then and are obviously extremely pleased to now have it in place.

"A lack of storage space meant that we’d had to keep various items outside the clubhouse, in its roof space or off site altogether, which was obviously far from ideal, but having this new facility means we can bring everything back into one place and will make everything much more efficient and easy to manage."

Katie Perkin, from Banks, said: "It’s an honour for us to be involved in helping the club finish the job."