The sport sector needs to do more to attract disabled participants. Speaking at the government’s first Disability Sport Summit at the Emirates Stadium in London, the culture minister Jeremy Hunt urged all governing bodies to use the unique opportunity created by the London 2012 Paralympics to integrate disability sports provision into their Whole Sports Plans and boost participation.
Jeremy Hunt said: “In the year that the Paralympic Games come home I want to see a transformation in sport for people with disabilities. Now is the time for everybody to up their game, creating real sporting opportunities for disabled people. That’s why within the School Games I’m delighted that we now have disabled children playing competitive sport alongside their peers.”
Sport England will be investing £8m of funding from the Places People Play programme to help overcome some of the barriers that make it harder for disabled people to do sport.
The summit brought together disability sports bodies in the UK to set out the government’s objective of making disability sport a higher priority. It aimed to build on work already done to integrate disability sport into the mainstream in schools through the School Games, which includes a compulsory disability sport element.
Jeremy Hunt watches children playing sitting volleyball at the Disability Sport Summit. Photo: DCMS
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