FUND RAISING UPDATE ON THE NEW SPORTS AND COMMUNITY CENTRE,16/04/2012

To date we have raised £376,000 from the following sources:

£171,000 (45.5 % of funding pledges/cash) in or through Codicote contacts;

£110,000 (29.2%) from NHDC;

£95,000 (or 25.3%) from other foundation trusts

£19,000 has been spent on planning fees, marketing and fund raising to give £357,000 currently held in pledges/cash.

In December 2011 we applied for £350,000 from the Sport England Iconic Facilities Fund. This year, in Round 2, there were 28 applications requesting £48m and, against a fund of £10m, 6 awards were made , some to projects of up to £50m in total project value

Our application, although considered good and, indeed, improved on last year’s application, was judged not as strong as others because

• the project did not give facilities of regional significance in the whole UK sports plan of a minimum of 2 NGBs of sport ; the focus was more on delivery of sport at a local level and as such we were backed by 7 regional NGBs to raise participation in their sports and had received strong letters of support from them

• The project did not provide enough assurance that the full funding would be secured from other parties

A final Round 3 of the Iconic Fund (£10m) will be in October – December 2012 leading to awards in March 2013. Unless our project can respond to the key challenges identified above, then a further application is likely to be unsuccessful.

However we have learnt of a future Sport England funding programme - a new fund, Improved Facilities, of £45m is in the process of being developed. This fund will run with a pilot phase in 2012/2013 and full and open rounds up to 2016/2017.Awards are likely to sit between the Inspired (£20k - £150k) and the Iconic (£250k - £3million) programmes. We have been asked to liaise closely with SE on this – we should still anticipate high demand, with a very competitive process still outstripping available funds.

In the meantime we are continuing to approach a range of other funds and, at the moment, anticipate writing to at least 10 funds in the next 2-3 months and a further 10 funds in the second half year. Success in all of this will depend on our being able to continue to demonstrate support locally. As can be seen above, 75% of our current pledges have come from Codicote and North Herts. This is good news and we would welcome further local donations /pledges – see our web site www.jc-codicote.org for details on how to subscribe

We are also in discussion with parties who might be able to sell land for residential building (including much needed affordable housing) in or near Codicote. If any of these parties are successful they have promised major contributions to our project. In addition we are continuing to look closely at ways of reducing the £1.7m cost of the new centre which would mean fewer funds to raise.

Jim Park (01438820325 or [email protected])