Places People Play: London 2012 Mass Participation Legacy Plans Unveiled

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2012 Olympic Games

The Olympic and Paralympic stakeholders came together to announce plans for the mass participation legacy from the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Unveiled by the Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP, and Sport England, Places People Play will bring the sporting legacy to life in communities across the country, answering London 2012's Singapore promise to inspire a new generation to play sport.

The £135 million initiative has been made possible by the Government's National Lottery reforms, which are bringing additional funding into grassroots sport.

Places People Play will be delivered by Sport England, in partnership with the British Olympic Association (BOA) and the British Paralympic Association (BPA) with the backing of The London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (LOCOG) and the London 2012 Inspire mark.

It will bring the inspiration and magic of a home Olympic and Paralympic Games into the heart of local communities, encouraging more people to get involved in sport.

Places

We will transform the places where people play sport, making the benefits of London 2012 visible in cities, towns and villages across the country by:

Upgrading up to a thousand local sports clubs and facilities
Investing in a number of iconic multi-sport facilities that set the standards for future facilities development
Protecting and improving hundreds of playing fields across the country, preserving high-quality spaces for local people to play and enjoy sport.

These facilities will be the only ones to carry the London 2012 Inspire mark, a permanent celebration of their role in the legacy of the Games.

People

We will inspire people to make sport happen at the local level, embedding the Olympic and Paralympic values in grassroots sport, by:

Recruiting, training and deploying 40,000 sports leaders as the next generation of sports volunteers to organise and lead grassroots sporting activities.

Play

We will create the sporting opportunities and challenges that give everyone the chance to become part of the mass participation legacy, through:

Gold Challenge - an independent initiative that will motivate over 100,000 adults to test themselves in multiple Olympic and Paralympic sports, and in doing so raise millions of pounds for charity
Sportivate - a nationwide campaign that will capture the excitement of sport, providing opportunities for teenagers and young adults to receive six weeks of coaching in the sport of their choice and guiding them into regular participation within their community.

We will be consulting disabled people and those who support them on how we can focus some additional investment - at least £8 million - on tackling the barriers they face when they want to play sport, as well as making sure that every element of this programme works for disabled sportsmen and women too.

Hugh Robertson said; "This is the cornerstone of a grassroots legacy from hosting the Olympic and Paralympic Games, because it delivers on the bid pledge of enabling more people of all ages and abilities to play sport. With more Lottery money being invested in facilities, volunteering and protecting and improving playing fields, there will be opportunities for everyone to get involved. When people talk about the legacy of the Games, we want them to talk about Places People Play - and then we want them to get out there and join in."

Sport England's Chief Executive, Jennie Price, commented; "We can't all be Olympians or Paralympians, but with great local facilities, inspirational sports leaders on the ground and sporting challenges to suit everyone, we can all be part of the mass participation legacy of the Games.

"In developing Places People Play, we wanted to bring both the Games and grassroots sport to life in communities across the country ensuring that, in challenging times, sport receives the investment and attention it needs at a local level."

British Olympic Association Chairman, Colin Moynihan, said; "When London was awarded the honour of hosting the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it was with the promise that legacy would be more than a word - it would be a tangible, sustainable commitment to transform lives through participation in sport and an understanding of the Olympic ideals.

"The innovative programmes being introduced today will do exactly that, and the beneficiaries will be the generations of young athletes, coaches, parents and volunteers throughout our country who will see their lives enriched by the positive lessons, values and choices they make through sport. That is why it is so important that we, as partners, come together and work collaboratively in making these programmes successful."

ParalympicsGB CEO, Phil Lane, said: "We know that the performance of the ParalympicsGB team on home soil has the potential to inspire many more disabled people to get active and involved in sport. Places People Play will help them do just that in their local community. We welcome the additional £8m investment in disability sport to make sure this happens."

"When we bid for the Games in Singapore in 2005, we said that we would use the power of the Games to inspire young people to take up sport. Places People Play will harness the inspirational power of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to promote sport across the country to leave a lasting legacy of sporting facilities, trained volunteers and more people participating in sport. This is what we set out to achieve from bringing the Games to London and the UK", commented LOCOG Chair, Seb Coe.