PRESS RELEASE – 7th December 2010

Warrington School Sport Partnership in Funding Cuts Protest

A petition with over 620 thousand signatures was handed in at Downing Street today in an attempt to reverse the Coalition Governments decision to cut funding for school sport.

The national campaign to ‘save our school sport’ has been supported locally by William Beamont and Lymm School Sport Partnerships (SSPs) who gathered over 3000 signatures from Warrington residents in just a two week period.  Paula Pearson, Partnership Development Manager for William Beamont SSP, travelled to London and joined hundreds of young people, school sport partnership staff and British Olympic Champions including Denise Lewis and Darren Campbell, as they gathered outside the Houses of Parliament to highlight their opposition to the cuts. During the day several MPs, including Andy Burnham, took time out to meet with the young people protesting, and state their support.  A contingency of young people led by Debbie Foote, the National Young Ambassador, then delivered the 620,000+ signatures to Downing Street.

Since the government announced the funding cut to SSPs as part of the Comprehensive Spending Review there has been an outcry across the country from all kinds of people, but particularly from young people themselves.  The ‘save our school sport’ campaign started in November by the Young Ambassadors, but momentum has continued to gather and in the last 10 days an Opposition Debate was held in the Commons, following which Prime Minister David Cameron instructed Education Secretary Michael Gove to look again at the school sport decision.

Paula Pearson commented “It is fantastic that the government has acknowledged the importance of school sport and there is now some hope that there may be some funding available to support this infrastructure and the work it does.  However, this decision needs to be made quickly so that SSPs can begin working with schools to plan programmes, and before the amazing staff currently in place are lost to redundancy.”

She went on to add, “It is gratifying to know that the impact of the School Sport Partnerships has not gone unnoticed in Warrington, and that head teachers, young people, parents, councillors and partner agencies from across the town have all voiced their support.

Whatever the outcome of the Government’s review of the wholesale cuts to School Sport Partnership funding, which has allowed us to provide so many additional participation and competitive sport opportunities across the town, we need to work collectively to find a way forward so that Warrington’s children and young people do not lose out.”

Photos from the Day

Cheshire and Warrington Plea to Save SSPs