Organisations that deliver or enable sport or physical activity in Blackburn with Darwen can apply to a new fund set up by Sport England in response to the coronavirus emergency.

The £20m Community Emergency Fund is open for bids from local sports, voluntary and community organisations including small charitable trusts for grants between £300 and £10,000.

The fund has been developed to help organisations meet their costs while they are closed for example: to help a local sports club pay for their rent, utility bills, insurance, equipment hire, core staffing costs and loss of income.

Chief Executive of Sport England Tim Hollingsworth states:

We want the sector not just to come through the crisis but to be in a position to thrive again in the future and this package will ease the pressure on a huge number of organisations who are central to that.

Pennine Lancashire local authorities including Blackburn with Darwen are working with Sport England to promote increased levels of activity to improve health and wellbeing.

Pennine Lancashire is one of twelve areas in the country to be selected by Sport England to ‘test and learn’ new ways of improving physical activity levels – the pilot in Pennine Lancashire is called ‘Together an Active Future’. Tim Hollingsworth recently visited the area and met with leads of Local Authorities and Leisure Trusts to hear what challenges have been encountered and how progress is being made.

The Community Emergency Fund is part of a larger £195 million package and is in addition to their recent decision to offer flexibility to those who currently receive funding – including the ability to change timings, key performance indicators, targets and conditions.

For further information and to apply for funding, visit https://www.sportengland.org/news/coronavirus-information-sector