Talking grassroots sport

Yesterday, I spoke in a debate on sport and youth services, highlighting some of our local teams, clubs and facilities, alongside work the government is doing to support them. As often happens, the speech had a tight three-minute time limit, so I’ve shared the recording of the speech to Commons, as well as the full, 7-ish minute version here. Transcript of the full version as follows:

Adam Thompson:

Thank you, Madam Deputy speaker. It’s a joy to speak today in the estimates debate on sport and youth services, particularly after I spent my weekend joining the furniture makers company for their annual tug of war in West Park in Long Eaton. Erewash has a long history of furniture making and our enduring local businesses get together every year to celebrate their industry, with their families, over a rather spectacular tug of war. They even let me have a go. Very proud to say my side lost. And I didn’t do so well staying on the rodeo rugby ball either.

The reason I raise this, though, madam deputy speaker, is the event took place on West Park, a local hub for grassroots sport, with West Park leisure centre, Long Eaton rugby club, Long Eaton Cricket Club, our skate park, various football clubs, our splashpad and a very popular parkrun all calling it home. I was struck, as I walked around the park, by some of the investment put into the park by our fantastic Erewash Borough councillors.

New lighting, a new events space and, currently under construction, a brand new, flagship bridge and waterfront space, currently being built as part of the Town Deal fund. A strong example of real cross-party commitment to local redevelopment, the project is going to help reboot the town as a local economic and leisure hub, linking the town centre to the park with a stunning contribution to improving active transport in the area.

In Ilkeston, too, we have seen huge investment in our parks. With a new park and several upgrades to existing parks planned across the town and some already completed. New lighting on Victoria Park and in Rutland Park next to the Leisure Centre, to ensure that people can feel safe using our great facilities in the darker months. Johnny’s Park in Ilkeston has been radically transformed. Like so many parks in Ilkeston, it had been neglected for decades. Paint peeling away. Equipment rusted. An insult to families in Ilkeston, in truth. Now, it has been wholly replaced with a modern, high quality, play park that Ilkeston families deserve. I must add, Madam Deputy Speaker, that all this new investment has been achieved without a rise in Council tax this year! That’s the difference the Erewash Labour team are making locally.

Similarly, Kirk Hallam is receiving funding from Sports England as part of their £250 million ‘Our Place Partnerships’ scheme. Locally, this means building community spaces and improving sporting environments – a focus on youth sports and improving people’s ability to look after their health. I am very glad that residents will have a huge say in how this money will be spent; ensuring the best for their community.

And all this sits, Madam Deputy Speaker, in front of further ongoing investment in grassroots sport across the country, such as the nearly one thousand community projects across the UK, that this Labour government announced in January. With funding focussed on our most deprived communities, and particularly on women and girls’ participation in sports, I’m very pleased that the government is focusing so heavily on improving low-cost access to sport in our communities.

Erewash was lucky enough to benefit from one of these recent projects, with Long Eaton United Football Club receiving a Football Foundation grant of nearly £20,000 to contribute towards a £56,000 project to upgrade floodlights on Grange Park, increasing the community’s access to sport in those dark winter evenings.

This grant forms just a small part of the great expansions to grassroots sports funding that the government built into the spending review, with £400 million committed to delivering new pitches, changing pavilions, floodlighting and facilities to support physical education, health initiatives and community outreach.

As we know, Madam Deputy Speaker, for every pound spent on community sport and physical activity, over £4 is generated for the economy and society. This investment in grassroots sport, and it is, real, investment, supports our local economies and saves the public in NHS spending in the long run by promoting a healthy, active lifestyle.

I should also shout out the Manor Foundation, here – a charitable organisation in Ilkeston who have created a welcoming community hub that reduces social isolation, promotes health and wellbeing, and supports positive futures. I recently attended another of their Football and Fun days at Ilkeston Town FC, where they champion girls’ football and coaching, alongside the brilliant Will Garvey Trust Foundation, who raise awareness of mental health struggles for young people.

This past weekend, I also met with one of my constituents, Chris Lawton, who is director at Skate Nottingham, a non-profit place-making, sports development and alternative education organisation rooted in Nottingham’s globally significant skateboarding community. Chris took me to visit Colwick skate park, in my honourable friend, the member for Gedling’s constituency, to show me the work he is doing with Skate Nottingham, Gedling Borough Council and Colwick Parish council, in rebuilding the Joshua Dale Skate Park.

Chris, alongside local parish councillors Meredith Lawrence and Abby Booker, talked me through how they’re using their recently awarded £10,000 Common Ground Award from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, for community organisations to access capital investment to strengthen social cohesion by improving civic spaces. I saw the foundations of a new ramp, forming part of extensive work that Skate Nottingham are doing on the skate park in coming months and years.

As a recent convert to a cheeky roller blade around West Park and having been raised on Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, that’s stuff I love to see!

Anyway, Madam Deputy Speaker – lots and lots happening in grassroots sport at the moment and it’s great to see the government providing the funding it needs to make it happen – long may that continue.