Communities across the country can today start
bidding for a share of £2 million of National Lottery investment to
protect and improve their local sports playing fields.
The latest round of Sport England’s
Protecting Playing Fields fund will help enhance local
playing fields or create new sports pitches.
Overall, 163 projects have benefited from a
total of £7.8million of investment from the three rounds of
Protecting Playing Fields funding, with 504 pitches and
nearly 1,900 acres protected and improved, and 57.4 acres of land
purchased.
Sport England Chair, Richard Lewis, said:
“Playing fields are a vital part of the sporting experience as it
is where people often have their first experience of sport.
This is a fantastic opportunity for more sports groups to benefit
and give generations of young people great places to learn
sport.”
The Protecting Playing Fields fund is
part of the £150 million Places People Play legacy
programme that is bringing the magic of a home Olympic and
Paralympic Games into communities across the country. Every sports
facility that receives funding will carry the London 2012 Inspire
mark – celebrating the link to this summer’s Games.
Through the Protecting Playing Fields fund,
Sport England is making investments of between £20,000 and £50,000
to create, improve and protect playing fields by:
- Bringing disused playing fields back into use
- Improving the condition of pitches (e.g. levelling, drainage,
reseeding)
- Buying new playing field land (not less than 0.2 hectares)
- Buying existing playing field land where there is a known
threat, such as the expiry of a lease or a development
proposal.
Sport England has also entered into a
partnership with Fields in Trust (FIT) to support the protection of
playing fields as part of the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge.
Successful applicants to Protecting Playing Fields who accept a
Deed of Dedication of their playing field in “perpetuity” will have
their project details passed to FIT. This will give them the
opportunity to become a Queen Elizabeth II Field as part of the
programme to mark the Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012
Olympics.
Alison Moore-Gwyn, Chief Executive of Fields
in Trust, said: “The grants provided through the Protecting
Playing Fields fund continue to build a legacy of greater
participation in sport across England in the wake of the London
2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. We are delighted that the
partnership between Fields in Trust and Sport England is ensuring
that the playing fields where these activities take place are also
being protected for future generations.”
The opening of the fund follows recently
published figures by Sport England that show 94% concluded planning
applications affecting playing fields in 2010/11 resulted in
improved or safeguarded sports provision.
As a statutory consultee on planning
applications affecting playing fields, Sport England will object to
all applications unless it improves or safeguards sports
provision.