To ask the Minister of Culture, Arts and Leisure for an update on Sport NI's Sports Facilities Fund.

The Sport NI Lottery Sports Facility Fund will see an investment of seventeen point five million pounds in sports facilities across the north of Ireland. The aim is to increase participation in sport at club and community level, whilst also providing facilities for high performance sports people.

It will be delivered through three separate strands:

The Single Facility strand, which has an estimated budget of two million pounds;

The Multi Facility strand, which has an estimated budget of six point seven five million pounds; and

The Performance Facility strand, which has an estimated budget of eight point seven five million pounds.

The Single Facility strand opened to applicants on 1st June 2015 and closed on 15th July 2015. Award levels within this strand are between ten thousand pounds and one hundred thousand pounds. Local sports clubs and other organisations could apply to develop their sporting facilities or purchase sporting equipment. One hundred and fifty-three applications were received.

Following an assessment of the applications and supporting Sports Development Plans, Sport NI has prioritised twenty one applications to move to the next stage in the process, which is the development of a business case for each project. Sport NI will now work with successful applicants to take forward their projects and are offering feedback and advice to those applicants who were not successful at this stage.

The most recent timescale for the Multi Facility strand to open for applications is now January 2016. Award levels within this strand will be between one hundred thousand pounds and one million pounds. Local sports clubs and other organisations can apply to develop new multi-sport facilities, or open up access to existing multi-sport facilities where four or more sports facilities are located at one site.

I would encourage clubs and organisations considering applying to the Multi Facility strand to register their interest with Sport NI, if they have not already done so.

For the third strand, the Performance Strand, Sport NI is currently working with District Councils, Sports Governing Bodies and other key partners to identify how the allocated funding can be best used to integrate facility needs of communities and high performance athletes within the same multi-sport environment. This work is continuing and a date for release has yet to be agreed.