John Penrose, MP for Weston-super-Mare, will unveil a brand new all-weather pitch for the Seagulls’ Woodspring Stadium on Friday 1 June at 10am. This project has been made possible by a grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund.

The grant has enabled Weston-super-Mare AFC, to replace one of their site’s grass pitches, which could not be used during winter weather, with a state-of-the-art third generation (3G) artificial grass pitch (AGP). This will benefit not only its 14 teams, many of which are part of its Academy set-up, but also the club’s charity arm Sports Active Seagulls Community Trust.

The Trust will use the brand new facility to support the community outreach programmes they already deliver. They will also work with local Special Education Needs school, Westhaven School, to develop a new disability football side. A 210% increase in on-site football participation is expected as a result.

The project was made possible thanks to a £642,727 grant from the Premier League & The FA Facilities Fund, which is delivered by the Football Foundation.

Since 2000, the Football Foundation Funding Partners’ investment has provided 222 grants worth £9.6m towards grassroots sports projects worth over £21m across the whole of Somerset.

Founded in 2000, the Football Foundation is the largest sports charity in the UK funded by the Premier League, The FA and Government, via Sport England. It develops new and refurbished grassroots sports facilities in order to improve the quality and experience of playing sport at the grassroots level. Since it was launched in 2000, the Foundation has awarded over 17,000 grants worth more than £615m towards improving grassroots sport, which it has used to attract additional partnership funding of over £817m – £1.4bn of investment into the grassroots game.