Northampton company behind sports programme for young people with disabilities awarded funding

A Northampton Community Interest Company (CIC) providing sport activities for young people with disabilities and additional needs has been awarded funding to help reach its goal to build a tailored toilet facility.

West Northamptonshire Council has announced it is awarding a £40,000 Changing Places Grant to Sport4Fitness at Fernie Fields.

Sport4Fitness provides multi-sport activities to children and young people with disabilities and special needs as well as supporting their parents, carers and siblings.

The funding will go towards building a tailored toilet facility for those with multiple and complex disabilities and specially designed to meet the needs of people for whom ‘standard’ accessible toilets are insufficient.

The full cost of the building work is estimated to be £90,000. Sport4Fitness has raised a total of £18,000 towards the work so far and is looking to raise the remaining £32,000 through continued fundraising activities.

Mark Flaxman director and sports coach at Sports4 Fitness said: “We are very excited about the whole project and looking to commence this project in September. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all contributors to the project so far.

“However, we are still not quite there and urge businesses and individuals in the community to pledge their support with any remaining funding.”

The cost of the wider project including landscaping, storage, access paths, parking and fit out will be £120,000.

Councillor Matt Golby cabinet member for Adult Care, Wellbeing, and Health Integration, said: “Sport4Fitness makes a valuable contribution to disability sport in West Northamptonshire.

“The current lack of accessible toilet of this kind on the site certainly prevents some of those in the community, needing the use of these facilities from attending.

“Clear example of this is some of the SEND schools and those who teach life skills to young adults. They sometimes choose not to bring a class rather than further isolate those with a profound disability, this is solely due to the lack of this type of facility.

“They are working towards becoming a centre of excellence for disability, and for this to happen it is essential for this work to happen.”

Providing further funding can be raised, the facility will hopefully be ready by March 2023.