House Secure Sport England Inspired Facilities Grant Funding!

Lowerhouse Cricket Club is delighted to announce that we are among 324 local sports projects to secure a share of £17 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund.

Since 2011, Inspired Facilities has been helping breathe new life into tired community sports facilities and converting existing buildings into venues suitable for grassroots sport.

Our project, entitled ‘Changing Our House’ has been successful in securing £50,000 of National Lottery funding to upgrade the clubs changing facilities. The improvements will see a complete redevelopment of the existing changing area to provide 4 separate changing rooms with new showering facilities, improved single level access, disabled access, a wet room facility and central heating throughout.

Lowerhouse Club Managing Director Matthew Stansfield, said: “We are delighted to have secured this investment which means we can upgrade the quality of our premises to match the quality of access to sport that we are able to offer to people young and old. It’s paramount to the future of the club that we improve our facilities to enable us to become multi-sport and to provide access to what we offer to more diverse range of people. Having now secured the initial funding we want to meet with club members and other interested to parties to enable us to maximise the benefit of this project to the club and the wider local community”.

Cricket Club Chairman Stan Heaton explained “We are delighted to receive this backing from Sport England and hope that by the start of the 2015 cricket season we will have a facility that we can be very proud of. The work on making that happen, starts now”.

Sport England Property Director, Charles Johnston, said: “The Inspired Facilities Fund has had a huge impact on grassroots sport across the country. Since 2011, we’ve invested £88 million into more than 1,600 projects to improve and refurbish sports clubs and transform non-sporting venues into vibrant community sports clubs.

“It’s great to see Lowerhouse Cricket Club join the long list of successful clubs to benefit from this fund.”

Many more communities are set to benefit from the hugely popular fund, with the latest round of the Inspired Facilities now open. Community and voluntary organisations, councils and schools can bid for a share of £20 million to help upgrade facilities that can be unattractive, expensive to run and difficult to maintain, and to convert existing non-sporting buildings into venues that are suitable for grassroots sport.

Lowerhouse Cricket Club would like to place on record our thanks to Darren Wright for all his help and assistance in this application.