Protection of Playing Fields Fund Opens
Protection of Playing Fields Fund Opens
Round 7 of Sport England’s Protection of Playing Fields Fund is now open until Monday 9th February 2015.
The programme is being delivered over 8 rounds and aims to invest £4 million of National Lottery funding into improving community sports fields in each round.
The first six rounds of funding has benefited 399 projects around the Country enabling the creation of new natural turf pitches or improvement of existing ones that needed levelling or drainage works.
The aim of the scheme is to create, improve and protect playing fields by:
• Improving the condition of pitches
• Support the purchase playing fields deemed at risk of being lost
• Creating playing field land (not less than 0.2 hectares)
• Bringing disused playing fields back into use
• Offering support to community and voluntary groups and local authorities to protect playing fields.
The programme has a number of key features and it is important that these are well understood by any organisation considering applying for funding to the programme:
• The maximum grant threshold for clubs is £65,000 with an upper limit of £100,000 for local authority applicants
• Applicants must be able to give strong written evidence of the need for the project
• Projects must be community led and demonstrate strong local partnerships
• Projects must demonstrate the contribution they will make to sports development
• Sport England requires a legal charge (or restriction on title for local authorities) over the land as a form of security on the investment on successful projects before work starts on site.
• Successful applicants will receive support with the design, specification and delivery of the capital works aspect of projects. Sport England turf specialists will also arrange for the procurement, contracting and management of capital works to be undertaken
• Playing fields for which funding is being sought will need to have been identified through either a published Playing Pitch Strategy, adopted local development plan or local assessment of need
• Education and statutory applicants, such as local authorities must provide partnership funding. The level depends on what type of organisation is applying
• Projects will be measured against the fund’s eligibility and assessment criteria. Only those that best meet the criteria will be supported.
For projects not ready for application within the current window Round 8 will open on 14th September 2015 and close at 5pm on 2nd November 2015.