Rugby League clubs across the country can today start bidding for a share of £2 million of National Lottery investment to protect and improve their local sports playing fields.

There were a couple of successes in the last round of Protecting Playing Fields funding with Underbank Rangers and Kippax Rugby League clubs both receiving £50,000 to improve their facilities so we suggest that all clubs  consider applying.

The latest round of Sport England’s Protecting Playing Fields fund will help enhance local playing fields or create new sports pitches.

Overall, 163 projects have benefited from a total of £7.8million of investment from the three rounds of Protecting Playing Fields funding, with 504 pitches and nearly 1,900 acres protected and improved, and 57.4 acres of land purchased.

Sport England Chair, Richard Lewis, said: “Playing fields are a vital part of the sporting experience as it is where people often have their first experience of sport.  This is a fantastic opportunity for more sports groups to benefit and give generations of young people great places to learn sport.”

Through the Protecting Playing Fields fund, Sport England is making investments of between £20,000 and £50,000 to create, improve and protect playing fields by:
•    Bringing disused playing fields back into use
•    Improving the condition of pitches (e.g. levelling, drainage, reseeding)
•    Buying new playing field land (not less than 0.2 hectares)
•    Buying existing playing field land where there is a known threat, such as the expiry of a lease or a development proposal.

Sport England has also entered into a partnership with Fields in Trust (FIT) to support the protection of playing fields as part of the Queen Elizabeth II Fields Challenge. Successful applicants to Protecting Playing Fields who accept a Deed of Dedication of their playing field in “perpetuity” will have their project details passed to FIT.

This will give them the opportunity to become a Queen Elizabeth II Field as part of the programme to mark the Diamond Jubilee and the London 2012 Olympics.

Applications for round 4 of Protecting Playing Fields will be accepted via Sport England’s website between 10 December 2012 and close on 18 February 2013.

Details on how to apply can be found here: http://www.sportengland.org/funding/how_do_i_apply.aspx