Multi Sport Facilities

The multi-sport facilities commitment is a key priority within Sport England’s UTM Implementation Plan for 2022-25. As part of this commitment, up to £224m Government funding is being invested into football facilities for 2022-25 through the Football Foundation, with a minimum of 40% of the investment required to benefit other sports.

During the first 12 months of this work, it has been identified through community and stakeholder engagement, that there is a need for additional resource to support the activation of these facilities ensuring that the investment is maximising the benefit to other sports and reaching key audiences in the right places. Community engagement has also recognised a need for small-scale capital investment to support single sport facilities, and park improvements to create Active Environments around sites would help encourage greater usage of these sites.

As a result, Sport England will be launching and administering a new fund - ‘Multi-Sport activity and facilities fund’ - which will be available to support the activation of funded sites and the creation of safe spaces around the facilities. The fund is aiming for a launch in early 2024, with a total of £6.8m available initially. The Fund will be closely aligned to Sport England’s Place expansion work to ensure connection to work locally, therefore Sport England have invested in additional resource to go into the Active Partnerships National Team to support this work and connect to local needs.