The £11 million Medway Park project will go ahead, despite an apparent shortfall of £5 million, council chiefs pledged today.

The showpiece scheme, described as a regional entre of sporting excellence, is being developed on the site of the Black Lion leisure centre in Gillingham.

It will be a potential pre-Olympic training camp for the London 2012 Games

Even if the £5 million is not made available by the Government, the council says it will find the cash from elsewhere, such as by cutting back money made available for acquisition of property, land and other regeneration work planned for Medway.

It is understood that millions promised for other projects in the Thames Gateway, including the Eastern Quarry "mini town" development near Dartford, have also been held back by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Urgent talks are now taking place to secure the promised Government funding for Medway Park.

A council spokesman said:" 'Medway has secured an allocation of £28 million of regeneration funding from Communities and Local Government (CLG) for 2008-2011.

Prior to that, a further £5m of government funding was agreed for Medway Park. This will be a superb legacy of the 2012 Olympics and will enable Medway to offer training camps for more than 20 sports in the run up to the Games. We are working with CLG to ensure that these funding streams bring the maximum benefit to the delivery of regeneration in Medway."