APNO appoints programme manager for the Multi-Sport Activity and Facilities Fund

To help support the implementation of the new Sport England Multi-Sport Activity and Facilities Fund, Alton Brown has recently joined the Active Partnerships National Organisation (APNO) as Programme Manager for Multi-Sport.

The Multi-Sport Activity and Facilities Fund, was announced last year and will predominantly provide revenue funding for multi-sport activity at facilities that have received investment, along with supporting a small number of test and learn capital projects.

The APNO has been working on the programme alongside key partners including the Premier League, the FA and Government’s Football Foundation, the LTA Parks Tennis, England Hockey, and Sport England, with the latter investing £8 million of National Lottery funding across a four-year period.

Alton, who will be leading on the integration of this fund across the Active Partnerships Network, has 16 years’ experience within the charity sector, delivering youth and community engagement programmes for leading UK cultural and sports organisations. He was also previously Head of Youth Programmes and Policy for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Joining forces with the APNO’s Multi-Sport strategic lead, Shirley Hurst, Alton is committed to ensuring projects are rooted in quality community engagement, co-design and collaboration. Together they are working closely with Active Partnerships from across the network, to implement the fund where the need is greatest especially communities who have typically experienced multiple barriers to participation.

Reflecting on his appointment, Alton highlighted his passion for helping people to be active: “I am very passionate about enabling access to opportunities for communities and excited about using my professional and lived experience to enable environments in which communities can thrive through physical activity.

“The fund is aimed at helping priority groups to be active at new and improved local facilities and provides an opportunity for local communities to fully benefit from facility investment in their local area. I am delighted to be working with Shirley and the national team on this initiative.”

To bolster the support for the programme, the Active Partnerships network has appointed eight Multi-Sport Regional Leads who have been working closely with Alton and Shirley and with stakeholders at a local and national level.

These regional leads are each based within a local Active Partnership, focusing on the programme for two days a week and providing support, connectivity, and communication around the multi-sport work. Their work is helping to strengthen relationships between local and national strategy and delivery.

Alton and Shirley’s work has recently focused on working closely with Sport England to initiate a condensed test phase for the revenue aspect of the fund which is being activated across four Active Partnerships from the national network.

Different approaches to investment are being trialled as part of this test phase, with a variety of projects being selected in the four different locations, so that the implementation, process and effectiveness of the fund can be assessed.

The insights and learnings gained from this test phase will directly shape the future delivery of the programme, with its second year expected to open for applications in July 2024.

The Multi-sport Activity and Facilities Fund is included in Sport England’s plan for implementing the Uniting the Movement Strategy, as a commitment to targeted investment into community football, tennis and multi-sport facilities.

For more information on the Multi-Sport Activity and Facilities Fund, which is closely aligned with the place expansion work recently announced by Sport England and being delivered with the Active Partnerships network, please visit our dedicated webpage.