Council secures funding in community sports facilities bid

Published: 24 October 2022

There are exciting developments in the pipeline to boost grassroots football in Derby. The city council is working with national partners to develop community facilities that will promote health and wellbeing for all its citizens.

Derby City Council has been successful in the first stage of a bid to the Football Foundation’s Playzones Programme. Using investment from the Premier League, The FA and the Government through Sport England, the PlayZones Programme aims to engage with local communities across the country to create outstanding sports and activity spaces and tackle inequalities in participation.

PlayZones are safe, inclusive and accessible outdoor facilities that bring communities together through recreational forms of football and a range of other sports.

The Council submitted an Expression of Interest (EOI) to the Football Foundation setting out its commitment to creating the places and spaces for citizens to be active. The EOI has now been approved and, as a result, the authority has been awarded a £25,000 grant support to enable the development of a full bid.

Details of the proposed new facilities and where they would be located are being finalised as part of the full bid, which will be submitted next year.

Councillor Jerry Pearce, Derby City Council’s Cabinet Member for Streetpride, Public Spaces and Leisure, said:

We are delighted that Derby has been successful in its EOI to the Playzones Programme. The funding will allow the city council to prepare a comprehensive bid with a view to creating new, accessible facilities for Derby communities.

The Playzone Programme is just one of the exciting projects the council is currently working on to boost grassroots football in Derby in order to promote health, wellbeing and community cohesion.

The Playzone bid comes as work continues on the proposed development of the new Derby Football Hub development. The hub would bring state-of-the-art provision to Derby Racecourse, with more artificial grass pitches and better community facilities.

The project is part of a national Hubs programme led by the Premier League, The FA and the Football Foundation.

Meanwhile, work is continuing on a project in Normanton and Arboretum made possible by £525,000 funding the city council and partners secured as part of the Active Through Football programme.

The five-year-project will see communities given the opportunity to co-design, deliver and participate in physical activity based around football, empowering residents to enable positive change in their communities.

Derby City Council has already brought about a number of improvements to facilities in Derby with the help of grants from the Football Foundation. Since 2000, the organisation has issued 235 grants to Derby, with a total value of £5.2 million. The money has supported 532 individual teams and funded 3G pitches, grass pitches, goal posts and changing rooms.

Leisure