The five-year project – Love Sport – is one of the first collaborations of its kind between Sport England and a housing provider. Sport England has invested £277,000 of National Lottery funding whilst £286,000 of partnership funding has been invested by Sanctuary Housing in the programme that brings sport and fitness sessions to four locations, while helping residents set up their own grassroots clubs.
Taking place in Sheffield, Torbay, Chester and Banbury, activities are being delivered with the support of local partners and tailored to the needs of each community.
The funds will also give people the opportunity to meet others from their local community and develop leadership and mentoring skills.
Our Director of Property, Charles Johnston added: “We’re delighted to be working with Sanctuary Housing on this innovative project to get more local people playing and benefiting from sport. The new partnership will allow us to reach more communities to promote the benefits of an active lifestyle and act as a model for other housing providers.”
Sanctuary Housing has long been supporting health and wellbeing through sports activities. Over the last few years, they have worked in partnership with the Football League Trust and nine Football League clubs across the country to deliver a range of sports benefitting 300 young people, as well as different organisations at a national and local level including StreetGames and Groundwork UK.
Visit www.sanctuary-housing.co.uk/love-sport for more on the Love Sport programme. You can also follow their Twitter handle @SanctuaryPR (you can use #lovesport in Tweets about the project).