Sport England launched their new funding programme, the Community Asset Fund last week which sees the organisation wanting to hear from sports clubs’ ideas that will make a difference to the places where people play sport and get active.

You might already own or lease a facility in the local community, are considering taking over some grounds or a facility that has the potential to be used for sport and leisure. They are keen to hear from all of you.

A welcoming, accessible space has the potential to attract a range of people to get active. And that’s a key part of Sport England’s new strategic direction.

If the places aren’t up to scratch­­, no amount of persuasion will stop people losing interest. That’s because the quality of the facility is often a big factor in how people feel about sport and fitness. And it plays a huge role in how likely they are to come back and repeat the activity.

The Community Asset Fund is an open, rolling programme and marks a change from the way that they previously handled funding, including:

• Open all the time. There will be no deadlines, so you can apply whenever your project or idea is ready
• Regular and quick decision-making. They will commit to making regular decisions as soon as possible on all applications
• Short and simple application. They don’t want you to spend a lot of time or incur costs if they can’t support you – but they also want to know enough to make a good decision
• No supporting information initially. They will only ask for supporting information when they have made an in-principle decision after the assessment of your application
• It’s just about your project. The information they will ask for is the information you know – the details of your organisation, your project and the community and people you work with
• More flexibility. They want to be able to treat each project and organisation on an individual basis and ensure information they request or the approach they take is reasonable and proportionate
• More developmental. Depending on the nature of what you want to do, theywill support and help projects where they can
• Continuous improvement. They want to continuously learn about how their investment makes a difference, so will seek your feedback and make changes as appropriate.

For more information about the scheme and how you can apply, please visit click here