2. What actions are the Welsh Government taking to promote community sport and recreation? OAQ54335

Thank you very much, Joyce. Encouraging our communities to become more active is a Welsh Government priority. In the year 2018-19, our delivery partner, Sport Wales, provided around £16 million to local authorities, national governing bodies of sport and other partners specifically for community sport development and to support them in delivering sport and physical activity opportunities reflecting local needs.

I thank you for that answer. I recently visited Open Newtown project in Powys and it's part of a community asset transfer project of 130 acres of green space that secured a 99-year lease from Powys and Newtown councils. And there are many elements to this project and they'll be delivered over five years, with funding from many sources. But the main aim of the project is to enhance green spaces in Newtown for both the community and the visitor, and it has a very strong emphasis on improving and enhancing sport and recreation for all. It's being done in many ways: improving pathways, football pitches, play areas and building a footbridge for pedestrians and cyclists. Have you made any assessment, Minister, of whether the community asset transfer projects are a possible way of enhancing and improving activity, sport and recreation within those communities?

I think we all have experience in our regions and constituencies in this place of the success of community asset transfers. It is a way of taking on the activity of public authorities in a way that links with the community needs. So, we will certainly continue to assess the effectiveness of both community asset transfer and trust models, and, in our work with Sport Wales and others of the public bodies for which I have responsibility, we work to ensure that the effectiveness of community asset transfer is made aware to people. And I would recommend to you, if you haven't been on it already, the Club Solutions website of Sport Wales, which emphasises how community asset transfer and trust models can be a very effective way of managing facilities for sport and other activities by communities for themselves. I haven't mentioned, of course, the wonderful swimming pool and climbing wall in Harlech, and I shouldn't have done that.

Deputy Minister, you may be aware of the long-established partnership between the Valero refinery in Pembroke and Sport Pembrokeshire, which has supported sport across Pembrokeshire for many years. This is an excellent example of businesses working with the local authorities and the local communities to support community sport, and certainly the partnership has had a real impact on community sport throughout Pembrokeshire. Now, in light of this, can you tell us what the Welsh Government is doing to encourage more relationships between businesses and local authorities to develop sports programmes in the community?

I am most grateful for that specific information. I’m familiar with Pembrokeshire—in fact, I was there this week. It’s always a pleasure to see how major international companies, such as Valero, invest back into the community. I will look in greater detail at that. I’m certainly most willing to draw local government and local communities’ attention towards the possibility of improving their services by receiving effective commercial sponsorship. This is true in the field of the arts, and it’s also true in the field of sports. The Valero company, as you know very well yourself, has contributed in those two directions—to increase and augment the arts and sports community provision.