FIFE COUNCIL IN FOR A Ł5.6m LOTTO BID

Members of Fife Council’s Policy and Resources Committee has approved a list of some 56 projects identified as being suitable for Ł5.6 million worth of lottery-backed monies from the New Opportunities Fund (NOF).

In April of this year, NOF launched a new scheme designed to improve physical education and sport for children aged between 5 and 16. As the nominated lead organisation for Fife, the Council took on the role of co-ordinating bids together with some of our key community planning partners, namely NHS Fife, Fife Constabulary and the local Sports Councils. This included encouraging bids from schools and community organisations, assessing projects, drawing up a short-list and then submitting this to the Policy and Resources Committee for approval before forwarding to NOF in time for its deadline of Friday 20th September.

Councillor Helen Law top right, who chaired the Steering Group, said: “This money will provide a major boost for both sports facilities and physical activity programmes across Fife aimed specifically at the Kingdom’s 52,000 young people aged between 5 and 16 years. It will help build upon the tremendous amount of good work that is already being done to provide meaningful, relevant and inspiring opportunities for young people to improve their health, self-esteem and personal development. These programmes are not just about promoting excellence in sport and physical education, but about trying to ensure that our young people have access to good quality PE and sports programmes, whether in a school or community setting. The projects that have been approved for submission to NOF will go a long way towards fulfilling this aim.”

“Not surprisingly, the financial value of the applications we received greatly exceeded the actual amount of money available. The working group met on five occasions during a very short period of time and came up with a list of 56 capital and revenue projects that met the strict criteria laid down by NOF. The deadline for submitting bids to NOF is 20 September and I would like to thank everyone who worked so hard to put these projects together in such a short space of time.”

“This whole exercise also confirmed that we still have a lot of work to do if we’re to improve the quality and quantity of the physical education and sports facilities at our schools and in our communities, particularly the need to upgrade, or in some cases provide, sports halls and gyms, multi-use outdoor pitches and changing facilities. We must also try and do more to improve the links between school and community sport so that young people can better access activity programmes outwith the school day and establish patterns of participation that will keep them physically active for many years to come.”

There is a two-stage application process for the capital funding and a one-off application for the revenue funding. The initial deadline for both is Friday 20 September. For the facilities programme, the stage one bid simply requires a list of proposed capital projects, set out in priority order and with indicative costs. If this list is approved by NOF, a detailed stage two application will be invited for each project as from April 2003. The funding itself is expected to be available in early 2004. The revenue funding application is submitted as a one-off bid on 20 September.