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

To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, what plans her Department has to support the (a) maintenance and (b) operation of swimming facilities in South Holland and the Deepings constituency.

The ongoing responsibility of providing access to public leisure facilities lies at local authority level, with funding levels set as part of the Local Government Finance Settlement. The Government encourages local authorities to make investments which offer the right opportunities and facilities for the communities they serve, investing in sport and physical activity with a place-based approach, to meet the needs of individual communities.

In June, we committed another £400 million to transform sports facilities across the whole of the UK over the next four years, supporting the Government's Plan for Change. We will ensure that this funding promotes health, wellbeing and community cohesion and helps to remove the barriers to physical activity for under-represented groups. We are working closely with sporting bodies and local leaders to establish what communities need, before setting out further plans on how future funding will be allocated across the UK.

I met with Sir John Hayes and Deepings Leisure Centre Community Group in July this year to discuss grassroots sport and facilities provision in his constituency.