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London Marathon Charitable Trust awards £750,000 to Swim England

The London Marathon Charitable Trust today announced its first Strategic Partnership Grants totalling £2.6million to six large-scale projects across the UK to get more people active. This is the biggest ever national funding programme from The London Marathon Charitable Trust (The Trust). It will see work with national organisations including Access Sport, Swim England and Street League to support initiatives that will get an estimated 50,000 more people active. Getting more people into swimming, cycling, football, running, outdoor exercise classes such as yoga, boxing, basketball and more.

A man using a PoolPod from the swimming pool

To date, The Trust has primarily funded facilities grants within London and Surrey. This new strategy from The Trust will expand its impact across the UK through proactive partnerships that challenge the inequality of access to sport. The target audiences are children, young people, women and girls, disabled people and disadvantaged communities.

The Trust’s Strategic Partnership Grants for 2018-19 are:

  • £845,000 to Access Sport for a three year programme that will deliver four new BMX tracks and clubs (two in Bristol and one each in Oxford and Manchester) and support a network of 50 clubs nationally to engage 6,000 young people in cycling activities.
  • £750,000 to Swim England working in partnership with Activity Alliance, Community Leisure UK, GLL and others, to enhance access to swimming at 20 pools across the UK through the provision of PoolPods, training and accessible swimming programmes, set to benefit thousands. A PoolPod is a sliding, submersible platform designed to provide people with mobility impairments with more dignified access to swimming pools. PoolPods were created following a design competition organised by The Trust as part of the legacy of the London 2012 Olympic Games.
  • £500,000 to Street League to get 5,000 young people aged 14-24 to be more active, targeting those living in areas of high deprivation in London and Surrey. The funding will enable young people to participate in team sports and nutrition programmes and to make a permanent shift towards living an active and healthy lifestyle.
  • £244,000 to Sported to fund a two year programme to get more women and girls into physical activity. Sported will work with 380 clubs and groups across the UK to reduce barriers to participation for 5,000 women and girls and also develop a network of 80 clubs across England committed to sharing learning about strategies for increasing the number of female participants.
  • 200,000 to Our Parks to expand its free or low-cost outdoor exercise programme for beginners including boxing, dance classes, basketball and more into every London Borough to attract another 20,000 people into exercise each year, particularly those who are currently inactive.
  • £100,000 to GoodGym to significantly expand its workplace-based initiatives across London, which will encourage more than 5,000 employees to get away from their desks and combine running or walking with volunteering in the local community.

Sir Rodney Walker, Chair of The Trust, said:

"The long term health and wellbeing of the population is at serious risk due to the prevalence of sedentary lifestyles. Our new strategy enables us to reach all four corners of the country by partnering with organisations that are skilled at inspiring more people to reap the enormous physical and mental health benefits that activity provides."

Mark Hardie, CEO of Access Sport, said:

“We are delighted by the generous grant awarded to Access Sport by The London Marathon Charitable Trust. This investment will be a big step towards achieving our vision of making cycling more inclusive and we will be supporting clubs nationally to launch programmes for those from underrepresented groups.”

Jane Nickerson, Swim England CEO, said:

“We have an enormous opportunity to support the health and wellbeing of the nation through water-based activity and we’re very grateful to The London Marathon Charitable Trust for helping us to make swimming more inclusive.”

The Trust selects Strategic Partnership projects on an invitation-only basis. For further details regarding the criteria for funding or to contact The Trust, please visit lmct.org.uk.

These new Strategic Partnership Grants are in addition to the recently announced £5 million of facilities grant funding available to London and Surrey in the next year (up to 30 September 2019).