Do you know about Sport England's £50million Inspired Facilities fund?

The Inspired Facilities fund is part of the Places People Play legacy programme that is bringing the magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games into communities across the country.

 

Investment has been made available to breathe new life into tired facilities that can be unattractive to sports participants, expensive to run and difficult to maintain, putting these clubs right back at the heart of their local communities. There is also money available to convert existing buildings into venues that are suitable for grassroots sport.

 

Typical investments might be: 

• A sprung floor that converts an unused hall into a local multi-sport facility.
• New changing rooms, so away teams no longer need to change in the car park.
• New floodlights that mean a facility can be used for many more hours of the day.

At least £35 million of the funding will go to community and voluntary organisations, through grants of between £20,000 and £50,000. The remaining money will be open to a wider group of organisations, including councils and schools, with grants of up to £150,000 available.

 

Sport England will invest in most types of improvement or refurbishment work that will help you develop sport in your local area. To qualify for a grant you will need to:

• Show how your project will keep and, ideally, attract more people to sport
• Demonstrate that it is needed and wanted by the local community
• Explain how it will cover its running costs and remain open for sporting use for years to come

In particular, they are looking for projects or organisations across the country that:

• Have not previously received an individual sports Lottery grant worth £10,000 or more
• Offer local opportunities to people who do not currently play sport, or
• Are the only public sports facility in the local community 

Applicants whose projects will benefit disadvantaged young people will also be invited to apply for funding from the Thomas Cook's Children's Charity from August this year.

 

To maximise the impact of the money Sport England have, and to make applying for a grant as easy as possible, have developed a “Catalogue” of many of the standard facility improvements clubs would like to make if they had funds available. The Catalogue has been developed based on market research and the views of local sports clubs, schools and local authorities.

 

The Catalogue provides a “one stop shop” approach and will help reduce bureaucracy and costs by making it easier to apply as well as reducing the time scales between receiving a grant and opening your project. You will be able to use the catalogue to work our realistic costs, calculate your budget and gather the information you need for your applications form.

The dates for the next two funding rounds are:

• Round 2: 1 February 2012 to 2 April 2012
• Round 3: 23 July 2012 to 17 September 2012 

For full details of the catalogue, the key eligibility criteria and how to apply please view http://inspiredfacilities.sportengland.org/

 

Chris Turner
Club Development Manager
T: 01785 619681
E: cturner@staffordbc.gov.uk