interview


What is missing is affordable capital that


focuses on expanding community sports clubs’ connections into the local economies and helps them develop commercial, impactful services; is prepared to be patient while new services are developed; and supports their transition from insular member organisations into inclusive businesses serving the local need at the heart of the community. Sporting Capital seeks to address this gap.


Leeds Urban Bike Park


Leeds Urban Bike Park is Sporting Capital’s first investment. The project was the conversion of an under-utilised local authority-owned golf course into an urban bike park that caters for the whole community.


The vision was that the Bike Park would eventually comprise a number of progressive mountain bike trails plus BMX and play tracks, together with a community building providing a café, bike maintenance facilities and other community use spaces.


Sporting Assets was engaged by Leeds City Council to support the development of a sustainable long-term business plan for the Bike Park.


This work gave Sport England, British Cycling and Leeds City Council the confidence to fund the £1.1m development of the trails and community hub at the bike park


Sporting Assets has worked with the social enterprise running the bike park for several years, providing initial support as they formalised their structure (as a CIC), helping to develop their plan for the park and now, through Sporting Capital, investing in them to help deliver that plan. The finance enables them to invest in staff and trading activities (workshop, café, education services) and gives them breathing space to develop a sustainable business model that supports all of the activities at the bike park.


We can invest in a range of organisations,


but they have to be incorporated and not be for private gain. So, for example we can invest in charitable companies, CIC, for profit social enterprises or companies that have certain restrictions in place around reinvesting profit, dividends and assets. If an organisation doesn’t meet these criteria, but has a good, investible proposition, we can help them to move to a more suitable structure if appropriate. We are looking to support organisations and


projects which have, or want to develop, a business model that delivers sustainable revenue to help deliver their ambitions and


16 pactfacilities.co.uk


Q. What are the benefits of using the fund? There are a number advantages to our investment. Firstly, it’s unsecured; that is, we don’t require security on a facility or asset or a personal guarantee from a director or trustee. We aren’t asking individuals or organisations to put themselves at risk to get investment. Secondly, development grant funding is


available to help organisations who are looking for investment from us but need some support to become ready for that investment. And organisations we work with will also benefit from our skills/experience in the sector and the knowledge and experience from peer investments.


repay our investment. So trading activity is great, but we can’t fund a programme that stops when the investment runs out. Due to the way Sporting Capital is funded we can only invest in projects based in England.


Q. Why did you choose not to offer grant funding? Traditionally community sport has been funded by grants focused on sports participation, not the revenue generators required to cover the running costs of facilities or organisations. As a result, financial sustainability is a cause of concern in a significant number of community sports clubs and sport for development organisations. We believe, informed from our experience,


that repayable finance creates a different mindset. Governance becomes more focussed and management/trustees/key volunteers become more ‘sticky’ to the organisation to protect the repayment they have committed to.


Sporting Capital launch Thirdly, we want to help develop sustainable


sports businesses and can provide flexible terms to help deliver that including up to 24 months capital repayment holiday to allow organisations to develop sustainable revenue streams before having to repay our investment. Finally, our investment is complimentary to


other sources of funding. Typically, where a facility is involved we would expect to see our investment alongside other funding such as


Image: Sam Talyor. Rider: Alistair Baron


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