East Surrey colleges to benefit from Lottery sports fund boost (From Redhill And Reigate Life)
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East Surrey colleges to benefit from Lottery sports fund boost
12:58pm Monday 15th October 2012 in Local News
East Surrey College in Redhill and Reigate Sixth Form College are among 22 colleges in the South-east being given a Lottery sports fund boost.
The colleges are to benefit from a slice of £1.7 million in new National Lottery funding from Sport England. The cash boost will fund 17 new jobs for full-time sports professionals to act as 'College Sport Makers' over the next five years, helping students to get involved in sport.
All the colleges had put forward bids for support from Sport England.
College Sport Makers will help individual sports to market their opportunities to students, as well as linking colleges with community sports clubs, running leagues and sports groups, and offering coaching for certain sports.
Every College Sport Maker will be expected to help hundreds of students to make sport a bigger part of their lives.
Maria Miller, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, said: “Following the success and enthusiasm generated by the summer, I am determined to keep up the momentum of the Olympic and Paralympic Games and get more people playing sport. “Raising participation levels among young people is absolutely crucial.”
Citing the UK sports funding total, she said: “This £20 million investment from the National Lottery will help do exactly that, getting more students in colleges up and down the country involved in sport.
“It will also create 150 new jobs, and these 'College Sport Makers' will make a real difference in helping young people develop a sporting habit for life."
Sport England has also invited colleges across the country to bid for a share of £3 million of additional funding to improve the sport they are able to offer, with grants of between £30,000 and £150,000 being offered to help colleges to run new sport projects. The money could pay for equipment to introduce new sports at a college, the cost of running new leagues, facility hire for students from colleges that don’t have facilities, or transport to get students to sessions.
