Sportscotland has invested £3.5m in creating seven new artificial playing pitches.

A total of £1.8m has been spent on creating six outdoor pitches across the country and a further £1.75m on the building of an indoor 3G sports arena at sportscotland’s National Sports Training Centre in Largs, Inverclyde.

The funding for the six outdoor pitches – in Cumnock, Troon, Paisley, Linlithgow, Dundee and Aberdeen – was awarded through the Scottish Government’s CashBack for Communities programme, a scheme that takes money recovered under the Proceeds of Crime Act and reinvests it back into the community.

In recent years, sportscotland has increasingly advocated the use of artificial pitches at playing grounds and sports centres - partly due to the country’s climate.

• To read more about the CashBack for Communities scheme and how it is used to fund playing pitches, click here