Construction work has got underway at the site of the new £38m Basildon Sporting Village in Essex, which will boast the county's first Olympic-sized swimming pool when complete.

Community Solutions for Leisure (CSL) has been appointed to deliver the complex, which is included in the Pre-Games Training Camp guide for the London 2012 Olympics and is scheduled to open in 2011. The new sporting village, which will be built by CSL's construction partner, Morgan Ashurst, will include a competition swimming pool, a 400-capacity spectator area, a learner pool, a sports hall, a gymnastics centre and a 100-station health and fitness club.

Meeting rooms, a climbing wall, a café and six floodlit artificial turf pitches are also included in the proposals, along with a new 750-seat spectator stand for the existing Gloucester Park athletics track. New site arrangements for users of the existing facilities at Gloucester Park have now been implemented in order to allow the construction of Basildon Sporting Village to get underway.