Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, how many grants have been made through the Park Tennis Court Programme in (a) Wales and (b) the UK since 2010.
As part of the Park Tennis Court Programme, the UK Government and Lawn Tennis Association are investing £30 million between 2022-2024 to deliver improvements to up to 3,000 park tennis courts across Great Britain. The renovation works include the installation of digital access gates, re-surfacing, and re-painting - all of which aim to improve access and increase participation in tennis, whilst prioritising the courts in the most deprived communities.
Since the start of the programme, over £800,000 has been invested in Wales with 89 tennis courts across 36 parks renovated directly as a result of investment from the Programme. A further £1.2 million will be invested in park tennis courts across Wales before autumn 2024, meaning in total the programme is forecast to invest £2 million renovating 178 courts across 65 parks in Wales. Completed tennis courts are listed on gov.uk here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/park-tennis-court-programme-completed-projects
More broadly, sport is a devolved matter and therefore support for grassroots sport and physical activity in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is generally the responsibility of the respective Home Nations Sports Councils and devolved governments. In England, we provide the majority of support for grassroots sport through our arm’s length body, Sport England - which receives £323 million in Exchequer and Lottery funding each year. Prior to the Park Tennis Court Programme, from 2010 - 2022, Sport England provided over £59 million of support to programmes to facilitate participation in grassroots tennis in England. Sport England publishes data on all grant recipients as part of its register of grants awards, which is updated on a quarterly basis with awards dating back to 2009. Please find the information here,