We are pleased to announce that we are among 148 sports projects to secure a share of £10 million of National Lottery funding from Sport England’s Inspired Facilities fund.
Sport England Property Director, Charles Johnston, said: “The Inspired Facilities Fund has had a huge impact on grassroots sport across the country. Since 2011, we’ve invested £94million into more than 1,800 projects to improve and refurbish sports clubs and transform non-sporting venues into vibrant community sports clubs.
It’s great to see Deer Park Archers join the long list of successful clubs to benefit from this fund.”
Almost 2 years ago the Gloucestershire Echo ran a front page story on the plight of the club entitled ‘Deer Park Archers future hangs on bid for new base’, since then we have completed the purchase of our own land, secured full planning permission to meet our requirements and made a number of big steps towards our dream of having a facility that will become a real and perhaps all too rare example of an Olympic Legacy!
Junior Squad Team Building & Practice Session last Sunday.
The grant will cover further develop of our ground including installing toilets and a 90ft covered shooting area.
Along the way members have raised thousands of pounds ourselves, secured crucial funding grants to help us towards our longer term aim and at the same time maintained an impressive track record of developing great archers and further expanding our activities in the community!
Chairman Stephen Howse commented ” This is fantastic news not just for the club but for the community. The grant is a great boost for all our hard working members and will support us continuing to develop our ground to support archers of all abilities and increasing participation levels in our sport. The covered shooting canopy will allow the club to organise events without the worry of our unpredictable English weather. ”
Already this summer we have received £33k from the Gloucestershire Environmental Trust to install drainage to the shooting area, easing access for those with disability and providing all year round use.
Drainage being installed earlier this year.
The installation of our car park was also supported by a £9k grant from Gloucestershire County Council under their ‘Active Together’ Programme and the pilot Weekly ‘Open Community’ sessions have proved to be incredibly popular.
Earlier this year local Member of Parliament Mr Laurence Robertson visited the Club to hear first hand of our role in the community, numerous sporting successes and our vision for the future.
The development of the ground is not only focused on the target facilities but very much on the environment, the land was an inert material landfill site 25 years ago, the club has planted over 1500 semi mature trees and hedging plants as well as clearing masses of dead scrub, clearing a stream and installing 100’s of steps to landscape a field archery course to provide another development pathway for archers who aspire to shoot at international level or just want a new challenge!
Creating our environment .
During the last 12 months the club has become a ‘Not for Profit’ Company Limited by Guarantee, a CASC ( Community Amateur Sports Club), renewed our ClubMark status and become a registered Environmental Body and set up 3 satellite clubs with over 100 members!
There is a clear need to develop our club, archery has never been so popular with national membership levels being the highest ever, the sport is very inclusive, appeals to both the sporty and not so sporty, very family orientated and is not expensive to participate in.
Lunch Time & After School Clubs generating huge interest in our sport!
Even with the latest round of successful grant applications, we are only part of the way along our journey, it is one that we need to compete if we are to be at our most effective within the community, especially as we would like to broaden the range of sports we are involved in.
Once again a big thank you to Sport England for their support!
