Invest in the success (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Invest in the success

11:15am Thursday 16th August 2012 in Letters

 Sir.–What a wonderful fortnight of sport we have all enjoyed with London 2012. It was great to see so many sporting triumphs, and just as great to see local people really getting behind our competitors and cheering them on.

The challenge now is clearly to harness all that enthusiasm and community atmosphere and to build on it by encouraging and enabling as many children and adults as possible to participate in sport themselves.

The Coalition Government showed an appaling lack of foresight and faith in our Olympians when they cut school sport partnership funding two years ago – the Basingstoke and Deane SSP was the largest in Hampshire, and easily the most successful, yet it had to be dismantled and countless talented and dedicated coaches and teachers of PE made redundant.

Now is the moment for the politicians in power to redress this injustice and, at the very least, restore the SSPs in full. To suggest that more competitive sport in our primary schools is the answer is missing the point. Twenty-five per cent of our children are obese – we need to encourage them and their parents to participate in activity that will help them to be healthy and live longer.

We need to be brave and bold and fund school sport properly as well as providing access for all to participate in a wide variety of sporting activity. Yes, this will cost money in a time of fiscal restraint but what price do we want to put on getting our nation fit and active?

Our Olympians have shown dedication and commitment, our people have shown enthusiasm and excitement, so let us move forward and fund sport properly!

–Councillor David Eyre, Kestrel Road, Basingstoke.