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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to increase the number of accessible sports facilities in (a) Coventry, (b) the West Midlands and (c) England.

The Government has provided unprecedented support to businesses through tax reliefs, cash grants and employee wage support, which many sports clubs have benefited from. Sport England has also made available over £220 million to support the sport and physical activity sector. This includes £35m for a Community Emergency Fund (CEF) directly to support community sport clubs and exercise centres through this pandemic.

Sport England is investing £16.5 million of National Lottery funding to support community sports organisations return to play using small grants, facilities funding and crowdfund matching that will help to support groups and organisations who help people needing the most help to stay active.

In the last 5 years, Sport England has invested over £111m in National Lottery and Exchequer funding to improve or build sports facilities through its Community Asset and Strategic Facilities Funds in England including £17.58 million in the West Midlands.

£6 million of funding from Sport England has been invested to support community sports clubs and programmes in Coventry since 2015.