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Sport challenged to increase disability sports participation

Disability sport summit drives disabled sports legacy.

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

皇冠体育app sport sector needs to up its game in attracting disabled people to sport, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said today at the Government鈥檚 first Disability Sport Summit, at the Emirates Stadium.

皇冠体育app UK has a strong tradition in Paralympic sport at the elite level, but more needs to be done to boost participation levels among disabled people. Just 17 per cent of adults with a disability play sport every week.

Mr 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: 鈥淚n the year that the Paralympic Games come home I want to see a transformation in sport for people with disabilities.聽 Now is the time for everybody to up their game, creating real sporting opportunities for disabled people. That鈥檚 why within the School Games I鈥檓 delighted that we now have disabled children playing competitive sport alongside their peers.鈥�

Sport England will be investing 拢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.

This is the first summit of its kind to focus on disability sports. It brings together disability sports bodies in the UK to set out the Government鈥檚 objective of making disability sport a higher priority, to share good practice and to strengthen relationships between sports bodies and wider groups representing or working with disabled people in the community. 皇冠体育app summit builds on work already done to integrate disability sport into the mainstream in schools through the School Games, which includes a compulsory disability sport element.

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Published 19 April 2012