A PLAN for a new indoor sporting facility at Eton College have entered its final stage.

The public school has been developing plans for a state of the art space used for swimming, wall climbing, fencing and more with the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) Council.

The plans include demolishing parts of the current gymnasium and indoor swimming pool to replace it with a six-court sports hall, eight squash courts, fitness and physio suites and a climbing wall. There will also be a fencing salle, a café, changing areas, teaching and office spaces.

Three follow-up applications, containing minor details, are awaiting a decision from the council. They are expected to be determined from late July to August.

The original planning permission sought to demolish existing buildings and completely replace them, but this was eventually scaled down due to building costs and affordability.

The school, famous for alumni like Boris Johnson and Prince William, already has the ‘finest facilities’ which include 40 football and rugby pitches, 19 cricket pitches and 50 tennis courts. Eton’s 2km rowing lake in Dorney was used for the 2012 Olympic Games.

The school said that the new facilities ‘will enable us to enrich our already broad and deep programme of sports even further’.