£60m windfall for grassroots sport

Community sports across England are set to benefit from a £60m government windfall this April.

The money, to go towards developing and improving local club facilities, will be made available to a variety of sports including football, cricket, tennis and rugby union, which will each receive £9.4m.

Other sports including rowing, hockey, canoeing, netball, table tennis, judo, basketball, cycling, gymnastics, badminton and rugby league, will be eligible for the rest of the fund.

The funding, which will run over three years form April 2003 until March 2006, will be administered by Sport England and distributed to the sport's national governing bodies, which in turn will, identify projects for investment.

'Sports England's role has changed,' says acting chief executive, Roger Draper. 'We're working in a more strategic forward-thinking way to enable governing bodies to focus on developing projects in their own strategic plans.'