Nottinghamshire YMCA pledges up to £1.5million in order to launch Sports and Community Village in Newark

This marks a great milestone for the exciting £8.5million project, for which Newark and Sherwood District Council has selected us as its partner to develop.

The Sports and Community Village is set to host a mix of programmes including afterschool clubs, a family cafe, a climbing wall and sports facilities. A six lane athletics track has now been confirmed, with support from England Athletics. Many stakeholders continue to have their say, helping to shape the formal planning application due to be submitted in the summer.

Craig Berens, Director of Operations and Programmes, says:

“We are committed to delivering a truly unique and multifunctional space in the shape of the Sports and Community Village in Newark. It is an incredibly exciting project to be involved with, especially for our YMCA which has been committed to improving health and wellbeing in communities for so many generations. As a testament to Nottinghamshire YMCA’s commitment to the project, we are prepared to match funds contributed by charitable trusts up to the total of £1million. In addition to this, we also pledge to match funds up to £500,000 from direct contributions.”

Nottinghamshire YMCA hopes that the proposed match funding will encourage other prospective funders to participate in this exciting inter-generational and collaborative project in the heart of Newark.

Todd Cauthorn, Operations Manager for Children, Young People and Families at Nottinghamshire YMCA says:

“The space and scope of the site means that we can build something that really brings together a huge number of local people. Families, sports clubs and individuals will all find something of interest. I’m really looking forward to being a part of it. We are extremely grateful to everyone who has showed their support so far, and look forward to meeting many more members of the community in the months to come.”

We hope to submit a formal planning application by summer 2017 and to start site work by the end of the year.