Sport England Update

 

NEW - £10m fund to protect playing fields

 

Sport England’s funding programme, Protecting Playing Fields ( PPF ) is part of our Places People Play Olympic legacy mass participation programme and is investing  £10 million of National Lottery funding in community sports projects over three years from 2011-2014.

 

The programme is being delivered via five funding rounds with up to £2 million being awarded to projects in each round.

 

Confirmed dates for the first two rounds are:

• Round 1 opens on the 25 May 2011 and closes on 6 July 2011
• Round 2 will open on 24 October 2011 and close on 12 December 2011

Delivering a mass participation legacy for sport from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games is a top priority for the Government and Sport England.

 

To help Sport England achieve this, PPF will focus on protecting and improving playing fields and developing community sport.

 

Through this programme, Sport England intend to fund up to 300 projects for playing field improvements that will contribute to both retaining and increasing participants in sport across England at the local level.

 

The programme will fund capital projects that create, develop and improve playing fields for sporting and community use and offer long term protection of the site for sport.

 

Projects are likely to involve the construction of new pitches or improvement of existing ones that need leveling or drainage works.

 

The following weblink contains all the information and guidance you need to find out more about Protecting Playing Fields including how to apply, how your application will be assessed and what we're looking for.

http://www.sportengland.org/funding/protecting_playing_fields.aspx

 

Successful projects will be those where organisations can demonstrate future management, maintenance and sporting use at the site along with the site being protected for 25 years or longer.

 

This means that organisations must own (or intend to own) the freehold or have a lease for the field for that length of time.

 

Sport England are also particularly keen to improve and protect playing fields in community ownership. As such they will also look to prioritise and further support those where ownership of playing fields sites are being transferred to the community from public ownership.

 

 

 

Chris Turner

Club Development Manager

01785 619681

cturner@staffordbc.gov.uk

 

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Young people urged to get out and give sport a go in Olympic legacy push

 

Thousands of young people have joined celebrations of sport across the country to launch Sportivate, part of the Places People Play mass participation legacy programme.

 

Hundreds of thousands of teenagers and young adults will benefit from this new sports programme that goes to the heart of the legacy promise made by Seb Coe in Singapore in 2005 to ‘inspire young people to choose sport.

 

The Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson and Commonwealth medalist, Zoe Smith, joined the teenagers and young adults at an event at Lincoln University. 

 

Sport England is investing £32 million of National Lottery funding in Sportivate, which will give 14- to 25-years the chance to receive six to eight weeks of coaching in a sport of their choice. It will help those who aren’t currently playing sport in their own time to get out and give it a go.

 

Find out more? 

 

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Ping! is back in Brum and Hull

 

Innovative street table tennis project Ping! is heading to Birmingham and Hull this summer after its success in bringing table tennis to scores of London landmarks last year. Ping! is again being backed by National Lottery investment from Sport England.

 

Launching on 8 and 22 July respectively, Ping Brum! and Ping Hull! will see more than 100 table tennis tables sited across public spaces, train stations, shopping centres and cafes. Marked ‘Stop and Play’ the tables are there for all to use and enjoy for free.

 

This year will also see the launch of the Travelling Ping Pong Parlour. This one-stop travelling table tennis social club will tour the country stopping in cities up and down the land, encouraging people to play.

 

Find out more? 

 

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Olympian opens state-of-the-art development for sport

 

Sport England Chairman Richard Lewis joined LOCOG Chairman Lord Sebastian Coe and current Olympian and World diving Champion Tom Daley at the official opening of SportPark, a landmark building for sport, at Loughborough University on Thursday.
 
SportPark is a state-of-the-art home to many of the country’s top national governing bodies including swimming, volleyball, and wheelchair basketball, as well Sport England’s Shared Service Centre and regional hub for the midlands.

 

SportPark cost £15million to develop and was funded by the university, with support from Sport England, emda, Leicestershire County Council and Charnwood Borough Council.

 

Find out more?