Extracts from Westminster Hall debate on Coalfield Areas: Sports Facilities - Oct 24
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Ben Bradley (Mansfield) (Con):...The new community focus criterion
of Sport England could be hugely beneficial for areas
such as Meden Vale, Warsop or Mansfield, if that sport could be
focused on bringing welfares back to life as a community hub for
health, sport, social activities and even the provision of
services. In Warsop, where they have unfortunately recently lost a
leisure centre, a community hub based around a welfare that could
bring all those things back together would be...Request free trial
Ben Bradley (Mansfield)
(Con):...The new community focus criterion
of Sport
England could be hugely beneficial for
areas such as Meden Vale, Warsop or Mansfield, if that sport could
be focused on bringing welfares back to life as a community hub for
health, sport, social activities and even the provision of
services. In Warsop, where they have unfortunately recently lost a
leisure centre, a community hub based around a welfare that could
bring all those things back together would be life-changing for
many people in the community. It is more cost-effective than an
expensive new building and could be done in some of the areas of
most need, where activities already take place...
...As well as the grants that Sport England provides, dozens of national governing bodies award funding packages, as do local authorities, but trustees of coalfield facilities often do not have the experience to apply for those grants. It is also the case that many applications have conditions covering things such as minimum participation, which can be difficult. Once established, helping to bring different teams, clubs and other community organisations together under one roof in a welfare-based community hub could help to facilitate bidding for and winning investment to make the centres self-sustaining in future... ...As I touched on earlier, Sport England helps many communities with health and wellbeing programmes, looking at ways to support community assets and to provide multiple services from one facility. Miners’ welfare clubs and sports grounds in coalfield communities have traditionally been used for a range of purposes, and I hope that Sport England sees the potential of many of those facilities as hubs for multiple services. That would also tie in with its work with deprived communities.
Sport England’s funding programmes, such as
Inspired Facilities and Protecting Playing Fields, are helpful,
but I would like to see a specific focus on coalfield communities
and protecting the facilities that currently exist in those
areas. As a Government, we should aim to prove that we are
committed to supporting coalfield communities, to advancing the
cause of some of the country’s most deprived areas and to
genuinely be about helping the “just about managing” to have a
better quality of life.... I was very interested in the comments by the right hon. Member for Rother Valley, because it says here in my script that the Kiveton community sports park in South Yorkshire is a particularly successful and recent example of how Sport England funding has helped to regenerate land and support mining communities to be more active. The park is used for sports as diverse as football, cricket, tag rugby and bowls; there are also para-sports such as boccia and goalball. Clearly, we need to talk about Kiveton outside this Chamber. It also says here in my script that it is a wonderful facility, and I am thrilled that so many people are being introduced to such a wide array of sports. Clearly, our perception of what is being delivered at Kiveton is very different from the reality on the ground, and I welcome his feedback on that. It also says here in my script that Kiveton is a great example of how local interest and drive can be harnessed to make a real difference for communities. Regardless of Kiveton, however, it is clear that facilities only work properly when they are properly planned, properly used and properly maintained. That means being clear about which people we think would benefit the most from using them. My hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield and others spoke about CISWO. Although colleagues will appreciate that I am not in a position to comment on specific details of CISWO’s operations, I encourage all interested parties, including CISWO, the local trusts, local county sports partnerships and others to come together to discuss how local communities and facilities can best be supported and managed. Sport England has huge expertise in this area and I am sure that its staff would be very happy to contribute to such conversations. If that is of interest to colleagues, we can help to facilitate it. We all know that many of the mining communities that we have talked about today include people from some of the hardest-to-reach groups in society, who are exactly the people who benefit the most from becoming more active. That is another key message in the sport and physical activity strategy. We want a strong focus from the whole sport and physical activity sector on how we can reach people who traditionally have not got involved in sport or who think sport or physical activity is not for them. A great deal of support is already out there. Sport England has delivered a range of opportunities that place tackling inactivity and engaging under-represented groups at their core, and it is investing up to £100 million in 12 local delivery pilots across the country. These pilots focus on bringing together a wide range of partners to solve inactivity challenges in very specific locations. We are monitoring those pilots very closely, as they will be vital in helping to deliver better interventions across the country in the future. Public funding and support can only stretch so far, but I shall make sure that the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Mansfield is passed on to the Chancellor as soon as possible. However, as I said earlier, there is no simple answer and therefore no one solution. Organisations that have great ideas about developing their facilities need to be encouraged and directed to other sources of finance and support. They need to be brought together—even cajoled—and it is in this regard that local leadership and understanding is key. Local authorities are the organisations best placed to understand what is needed in their communities and how to build support for any proposal, and the brokerage that local leaders can offer is invaluable. I urge the parties involved to get around the table to find a solution. Whether it is the challenges of planning regulations, access to finance or a lack of co-ordination, there is an opportunity to address real community need. What we must avoid at all costs is building facilities that do not have the support of local organisations and that have not been tested by the community. I know that as someone whose constituency received funding for a major sports facility in the early stages of Sport England and lottery funding. That facility was developed, but a few years later it went into administration, because it had not been subject to community testing and did not have the right business plan. I really encourage thinking through the bids that go into the lottery organisations... Sir Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab): I am very grateful to the Minister for what she has said. I will make contact with the CISWO officer in my constituency to see whether I can facilitate a meeting between CISWO and Sport England, to look at all these issues that are affecting people up and down the land in former coalfield areas.
Tracey Crouch: We all want to see
more and better facilities. It is important that we work together
in partnership to help people to get active, but sporting
facilities all need to be properly planned, and that is where the
leadership of colleagues here in Parliament, including leadership
of their colleagues in their own constituencies, is incredibly
important. Understanding the needs of local communities and
building a broad consensus are crucial, and those of us in
central Government in Whitehall are probably not best placed to
do those things. However, we can provide the expertise from Sport
England to help to support those conversations...
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