Thomas Cook Children’s Charity offers £500,000 boost to sporting legacy fund
Thomas Cook Children’s Charity has joined forces with Sport England to bolster the newly-launched Inspired Facilities fund by offering an additional £500,000 to improve sporting opportunities for disadvantaged young people across the country.
The Inspired Facilities 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. It will invest £50 million of National Lottery money through five funding rounds.
Local sports clubs and facilities applying to the fund will have the chance to apply for the additional investment from the Thomas Cook’s Children’s Charity if their project will benefit disadvantaged young people. Both capital and revenue funding will be available from the charity.
Vice Chairman ofThomas Cook Children’s Charity, Pip Tyler said:
“We are proud to be working in partnership with Sport England and have allocated £500,000 of our charitable funds to help invest in our sports stars of the future. As Thomas Cook is one of the key sponsors of the 2012 Olympics, we are keen to nurture home grown talent and ensure sporting opportunities are accessible in the most deprived areas of England.”
Sport England’s Chair, Richard Lewis, said:
“We are really pleased to be working with Thomas Cook Children’s Charity to deliver improved sporting opportunities for disadvantaged young people across the country. Building partnerships, like this, are essential if we are to create a world-leading community sport system and deliver a lasting grassroots legacy from London 2012.”
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.
Investment will be 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 will also be money available to convert existing buildings into venues that are suitable for grassroots sport.
The Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP, said:
“This £50 million fund is a huge boost to community sport. It will transform local sports facilities up and down the country and leave a lasting legacy from London 2012 at a local level.”
The programme has been designed to be as simple and accessible as possible for potential applicants, making it attractive to community groups and sports clubs who may not have received public funding before.
To make sure the technical elements of the application process don’t put off groups with good projects, Sport England has created a catalogue of typical facilities developments and improvements, based on what sports clubs have told us they need.
For successful applicants, there is also the opportunity to make use of a group of pre-appointed contractors who can do the work without the need for a lengthy procurement process.
