With just over a year to go before the Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Mayor has revealed plans to award grants from his Sports Legacy Fund to 14 large scale sports participation projects and 26 community facilities.
The announcement is made up of £4m from the Mayor’s Sports Legacy Fund and £8m ‘match funding’.
The Mayor's total spend on grass-roots sport is now over £10m and with a further £20m plus leveraged in as match funding, the Mayor has already met his target of channelling £30m to boost sport in London by the 2012 Games.
The match funding has been drawn from a range of sources in the private, public and charitable sector.
Some of the projects to benefit include a plan for nine new wheelchair basketball clubs, virtual indoor rowing ‘race nights’ for thousands of children and weekly touch rugby sessions for workers right across London.
Facilities are also being upgraded across the capital, creating capacity for an additional 20,000 users per week.
Other projects include a new two-storey karate club in Kingston-upon-Thames, the reopening of a disused lido in Charlton, and a new floodlit hockey pitch in Hillingdon.
In addition, more than 140 organisations are set to benefit from ‘Freesport’ grants of up to £1,500 given to small clubs and community groups to provide around 10,000 Londoners with a minimum of six hours of free sports coaching.
The Mayor has also been providing heavily subsidised training for Londoners wishing to train as a sports coach, official or volunteer.
To date, more than 4,500 training places have been funded, with recipients of the training having pledged more than 50,000 hours of volunteering back into their local communities.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: ‘From hockey in Hillingdon to karate in Kingston, we are storming ahead to revamp facilities and increase sports participation across the board’.
‘This investment, which sees some hugely important match funding being pledged, is fantastic news for Londoners of all ages and abilities from across the city. I am absolutely clear that to create a lasting legacy from the London Games, we must do all we can to get people out of their living rooms and into physical activity’.
Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson, added: ‘The bid to bring the Olympics to London was built on the back of a promise that it would leave a lasting sporting legacy and inspire a generation to get involved in sport. This investment by the Mayor of London and others will offer hundreds of thousands of people of all abilities across the capital that opportunity’.
Published: 19/07/2011
Source: http://www.sportindustry.biz/news/view/10084/london-grassroots-get-%C2%A312m-boost
