Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what steps her Department is taking to encourage grassroots sports clubs to share their facilities with local communities.

The Government recognises that sports facilities are important to communities up and down the country. High-quality, inclusive facilities help people get active.

Sport England, our arm’s length body that is responsible for physical activity and sport participation in England, invests over £250 million a year into grassroots sport and physical activity. A large part of Sport England’s work focuses on bringing organisations together at a local level including the health and sports sectors. This includes their place partnerships work which is working in a targeted way with local areas to understand and overcome the specific barriers in their communities.

The Government-funded School Games Organisers are essential in ensuring that all children have the opportunity to take part in local and accessible sport and physical activity. There are over 450 SGOs across the country who support schools in their local areas to provide physical activity both inside and outside of school, with many facilitating links to wider club and community engagement.

We are considering how we can best make all of this work for local communities as part of the Spending Review.