£12m Lottery cash for schools sport

Schools in London are to get a £12million boost to improve sports facilities, it was announced today.

The injection of Lottery cash comes after the launch of the Evening Standard's campaign to help schools pay for equipment such as footballs and team strips.

London takes the lion's share of £26million of grants announced by the Big Lottery Fund.

It will go to 33 projects around the capital, including ?2million for a four-court sports hall at Eltham Green Specialist Sports College in Eltham.

Sports minister Richard Caborn said: "These new and improved facilities will help us achieve both a fitter nation and world class success."

Almost 1,000 schools have signed up for the £1million Evening Standard and EDF Energy Sport for Schools campaign, launched last week by Olympians Sir Matthew Pinsent, Darren Campbell, Marlon Devonish and Steve Williams.

Up to 3,000 primary and secondary schools in London could benefit and headteachers have until the end of next month to register. Parents, pupils and staff can collect tokens worth 10p printed in the Standard every day. These can be exchanged for sports equipment or travel to sporting venues.

Five thousand tokens kit out a football team and pay for new goalposts, while 10,000 will buy equipment for a whole gym.