Ben Bradley, Member of Parliament for Mansfield and Warsop, has welcomed recent news the town will benefit from an additional £1,154 in new funding as a result of the Government’s long-term investment into grassroots sports.
This comes on top of the £33,490 announced earlier in 2023 that has helped clubs across Mansfield to maintain equipment such as maintenance machinery, goal posts and flood lights amongst many other things.
This latest round of investment into local clubs and pitches will help hundreds of thousands of people across the country stick to their new year’s resolutions, by delivering more high-quality grassroots sports facilities for people to use.
Over 1,100 projects across the country are also receiving this funding towards facilities such as changing rooms, pavilions, state of the art 3G football turf, goalposts, and floodlights, improving access to sport and physical activity for local communities.
Importantly, the Government’s multi-sport grassroots fund is investing in areas that are most in need, with at least 50 per cent spent in the most deprived and inactive local authorities.
As part of this investment, local communities across Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland will benefit from an unprecedented £12 million in 2023-24, delivering in partnership with the Scottish FA, the Irish FA, Cymru Football Foundation and Football Association of Wales. A further £9 million is also being committed across these regions for projects to be delivered through 2024-25.
This builds on historic investment in grassroots sport. Since 2021, the Government has helped deliver new facilities or improvements at almost 2,400 sites across the UK, getting more than 120,000 people active.
This latest investment into our town’s grassroots sport reflects the continued commitment from Government to give more communities access to high-quality local facilities - helping to improve both the physical and mental health of the people who live here.
Commenting, Ben Bradley MP said:
“Access to high-quality local sports facilities is a campaign I have been running for a long time in Westminster. During that time, I have held debates in the House of Commons chamber on the subject and had numerous meetings with ministers on the subject.
“Last year I was really pleased to see over £33,000 announced to help improve our local sports facilities, so it’s fantastic news that we’re not even one month into 2024 and even more funding is coming our way!
“I know how much this support means for our local clubs, for our pitches and for the communities that play on them, and we all know how important getting active is to our physical and mental health, so this is great news!”
Commenting, Sports Minister Stuart Andrew said:
“Sport and physical activity are vital to our mental health and wellbeing, and each year thousands of people make a New Year's resolution to exercise more.
“We know that one of the major barriers in getting active is having access to high-quality sports facilities, which is why we are upgrading 1,100 more pitches, backed by investing £93 million.
“This Government has delivered thousands of new projects across the UK with the aim of getting over 120,000 more people to get active, helping us to make big strides towards meeting our ambitious target of 3.5 million more people active by 2030.”
