New funding announced to help grow Skateboarding in England
Skateboard GB are delighted to announce funding of £1.83 million to help support and grow skateboarding participation and use the sport to tackle inequalities in England over the next 5 years.
The money is part of today’s funding announcement from Sport England, supporting 121 partners with a total of £550 million. This includes other National Governing Bodies, Key Charities, Safeguarding Organisations and Active Partnerships.
Skateboard GB have already delivered a number of successful projects which include; The MySkate App to allow people to locate every skatepark in the country, a coaching qualification (Get Rolling) which has successfully trained over 500 coaches, the first official skatepark facilities guidance to help Local Government and user communities successfully develop new skateparks, the Cruiser Award scheme to reward beginner skateboarders and a Grassroots Skatespaces programme with Habito Mortgages, investing in community-led spaces such as Bournbrook DIY in Birmingham.
Skateboarding has shown the potential to significantly drive physical and mental health improvements nationwide, by offering a flexible, fun, low cost and culturally and socially enriching activity, which engages with a growing number of people who are otherwise ‘turned-off’ by traditional competitive sports.
Skateboarding participation has grown to an all-time high across the country with more than 560,000 people skateboarding and a 20% year-on-year growth in female skateboarders taking up the sport.
James Hope-Gill, CEO at Skateboard GB commented on today’s announcement “Today’s announcement is really exciting and a major step forward to allow SBGB increase support for the skateboarding community and help grow skateboarding participation across England”
“Skateboard GB launched an ambitious 12-year strategy for skateboarding last year. Today’s Sport England funding will play a major part in ensuring the success of this.”
The key priorities for SBGB are to: Skate More, Skate Better, Skateable Spaces and Connect, which align closely with the '5 Big Issues' set out in Sport England's 'Uniting the Movement Strategy', as well as the strategy to tackle inequalities and support everyone to access the life-changing benefits of skateboarding.
Tim Hollingsworth, CEO at Sport England, said “At the heart of our strategy Uniting the Movement is a relentless focus on tackling inequalities to help everyone get active – no matter who they are, where they live, or what their background is.”
“We cannot do this alone, and that’s why we are building a movement of partners that share our goal to level up access to sport and physical activity.”