Ben Bradley column: ​I’m a great believer in the power of sport to help boost our community

​I love my sport, as does everyone in my household. Growing up I played lots of rugby and hockey and I still coach my kids’ hockey at the weekends.

I’ve seen first-hand the impact sport has on our communities here in Mansfield, it brings people together and helps people look after their mental health as well as physical.

So it’s fantastic news that Mansfield has been allocated another £47,000 worth of funding to improve grassroots sports in our area.

This money will go towards projects like new fencing at Debdale Sports Park, maintenance equipment at Clipstone Miners Welfare, new goalposts at Forest Town Arena and even more.

As well as all this, only a couple of months ago it was announced that Berry Hill United and Woodhouse Colts JFC would receive £1,000 through Government’s 'Get Active Strategy', to provide them with new goalposts too.

Although these are all only small investments, they clearly add up, and make a big difference to grassroots clubs.

The Government’s Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme, which is an investment focussed on enhancing access to grassroots sports across the country started in 2021 and will go on until 2025.

It aims to invest over £320 million to level up sports facilities across the country so that every community has the opportunity to access sport.

For our town over the last few years, we’ve seen a massive uplift in sports funding with various initiatives delivering new facilities or improvements.

Across the country this has delivered improvements at over 2,400 sites, getting more than 120,000 people active since 2021.

It’s helped to fund facilities such as changing rooms, pavilions, state of the art 3G football turf, goalposts, and floodlights, improving access to sport and physical activity for local communities.

I want to build on this even further, and I think the new regional Combined Authority coming this May gives us another opportunity to boost grassroots sport.

I’m already talking to Government about passing further funds down to our level, so we can boost local clubs and facilities. If I’m fortunate enough to become the regional Mayor, I’ll work with our professional sports clubs and with business to bring more investment in to pitches and facilities.As well as that, right now it can take up a lot of time and resource to navigate the complicated routes to grant funding and financial help for local clubs.

However if that money – things like the Youth Investment Fund or Pitch Strategy funding currently held by central Government – was held here locally with some more long-term certainty rather than just one-off, short-term grants, then we could deliver so much more.

So lots going on with local sport, and lots of opportunities. I’m a huge believer in the power of sport in our children and young people’s development; the team work, the confidence, commitment, resilience, discipline and everything else.

I’ve always argued that this power is undervalued by those in charge of the money, so it’s great to see some help filtering down to our local clubs and local kids.