A BOXING club pleading for \u00a31.2million in pulled Government funding to be reinstated has written an open letter to the PM urging him to intervene.<\/p>\n
The Lifstan Boys and Girls Club had been awarded the huge funding boost to redevelop their home in Liftsan Way but cash was pulled after the project was deemed \u201cunviable\u201d.<\/p>\n
Social Investment Business, a firm which handles funding projects for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, cancelled the project earlier this month over time constraints and concerns it would not be value for money.<\/p>\n
Campaign – The club is relying on community support to get behind the campaign. (Image: Danny Neville)<\/p>\n
Now, the 100-year-old club is launching a widespread campaign across social media calling for the decision to be reversed and has written to Sir Keir Starmer and Secretary of State Lisa Nandy.<\/p>\n
Jay Solder, youth club deputy director, said: \u201cWe\u2019re hoping to apply pressure to get the funding reinstated, lobbying as hard as we can and make people aware of our situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe encourage people to lend a hand to the campaign to help get this decision overturned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Survival – The future of the 100 year legacy club rests on the success of the campaign. (Image: Danny Neville)<\/p>\n
Monday evening saw the club meet with Bayo Alaba, Labour MP for Southend East and Rochford, who pledged to help the club in their endeavour.<\/p>\n
Mr Solder added: \u201cWe hope Mr Alaba can help us turn things around – he\u2019s pledged to help us progress our campaign and is being really proactive by engaging with ministers and cross-party colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
The campaign involves a rigorous, high-visibility social media push that\u2019s \u201creally taking off with a real show of support from the local community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team – Coaches and members of the club are rallying together. (Image: Danny Neville)<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
Southend businesses and lifelong club members have been in contact, with offers of donation and endorsement to help keep the club afloat<\/p>\n
With the campaign gaining momentum, the club hopes to rescue the funding.<\/p>\n
Mr Solder said: \u201cWe\u2019re throwing all our efforts to make this visible and public, and it\u2019s really important that we\u2019re successful to avoid the closure of the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur clubs are a long-term feature of the youth scene in Southend – to potentially lose them would be a massive loss for the city in a time where there is such a shortage of youth provision in the area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is no longer just a story about a lost grant, it\u2019s a live accountability and legacy issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A BOXING club pleading for \u00a31.2million in pulled Government funding to be reinstated has written an open letter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,25721,25719,21189,25722,25720,85],"class_list":["post-26517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boys-and-girls-club","tag-danny-neville","tag-government-funding","tag-jay-solder","tag-legacy-club","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}