TV star 'shocked' by Beacon progress

Television presenter and architect George Clark was given a glimpse of the future during a special tour of the North East's newest 'amazing space'. The Foundation Trustee took a walk around the Beacon of Light, the world-class £19m facility due to open to the public later this year. George was joined by Assistant Director for Sales and Delivery Jamie Wright during the visit which included a look at the roof-top football barn and multi-use sports hall as well as the Health and Wellbeing, Education and World of Work zones. George said: "It looks absolutely brilliant. I can't quite believe that the Beacon of Light is nearly done. I'm still in a state of shock to be honest.

There's nothing like this in the city, or for miles around when you think about it in terms of scale, size and flexibility. I've been a Trustee of the Foundation for five years and we had this idea of one day having a flag ship world-class building and we're nearly there.

"There's going to be a real buzz about the place. There's going to be lots of diversity under one roof – it's pretty amazing. "The city should be really proud of [the Beacon]. We haven't just built it for the Foundation, we've built it for the City of Sunderland and it's a space for everyone to come and use." [embed]https://youtu.be/ZUxvO28FOLc[/embed] The Beacon of Light will house a broad range of Foundation of Light's award-winning community programmes through four innovative zones: Education; Health and Wellbeing; Sport and Play; and the World of Work. Jamie Wright, Assistant Director of Sales and Delivery, added: "We want the Beacon to be a building for the North East. We want everyone from across the region to come and use the facilities. "It's not an elite environment, the Beacon is for everybody, but the facilities are elite."