Save Community Sports Clubs and Leisure Facilities with a Sports Recovery Fund

We call on government to instigate emergency funding in the form of a Sports Recovery Fund to ensure sport clubs, fitness and leisure facilities - the lifeblood of communities across the nation – can remain open and survive the coming difficult months.

Grassroots sport, fitness and leisure facilities are facing collapse due to Covid-19. Without emergency Government support, like that given to the arts sector, community sport and the UK's physical and mental health faces a bleak future that will be difficult to recover from, damaging Britain’s ability to Build Back Better. Action is needed now to ensure everyone continues to have the opportunity to play the sport they love and be physically active. A Sports Recovery Fund will help achieve this.

Sport and physical activity are incredibly important for our physical and mental health, and are a vital weapon against coronavirus. That’s why we made sure that people could exercise at least once a day even during the height of lockdown - and why we opened up grassroots sport and leisure facilities as soon as it was safe to do so.

We recognise the vital contribution that sports clubs play in their communities. Were we to lose them, we would lose so much more than sport. The wider contribution they have made during the pandemic is not to be underestimated: hosting test centres, looking after vulnerable people and organising food deliveries.

That is why the Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support, which many sport clubs have benefited from. On 22 October, the Government announced a £100m support fund for local authority leisure centres. In addition, Sport England has also provided over £220 million for the sport and physical activity sector with a Community Emergency Fund of £35 million directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic. We are continuing to work with organisations to understand what they need and how we may be able to support them.

Nobody wanted to be in the position of having to introduce further National Restrictions. However, as the Prime Minister said, with the virus spreading faster than expected we cannot allow our health system to be overwhelmed. The National Restrictions are designed to get the R rate under control through limiting social contact and reducing transmissions.

In order for these measures to have the greatest impact, we will all need to sacrifice doing some things that we would otherwise like to do, for a short period of time. As soon as we're in a position to start lifting restrictions, grassroots sports will be one of the first to return.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport