This is the most rural of all the pilots areas and our focus in King’s Lynn is on developing a local tennis workforce, introducing modified forms of the game to under-represented groups, including older and disabled people, and integrating the sport fully into local schools and colleges.
We’ve teamed up with King’s Lynn Football in the Community and invested into the four MUGA (Multi Use Games Areas) sites across the city. We’ve trained football coaches to become Tennis Activators and as such tennis is now being delivered alongside football on these sites.
One of key partners in West Norfolk is the Discovery Centre, a youth and community centre in the heart of North Lynn. This is an area in the top 10% of the national indexes of deprivation. The centre runs programmes year-round for young people seven days a week.
They run an extensive holiday programme that regularly attracts in excess of 300 young people a day. They also run a rural outreach programme and have a fleet of mini buses to transport young people to and from the centre. They are also actively leading NEET (not in employment education or training) projects in partnership with the police, local education authority and local strategic partnership. We have been working closely with the centre to develop tennis as part of their core offer and have trained many of their staff to become Tennis Activators and qualified coaches.
If you'd like more information or would like to be involved in our King's Lynn pilot, please contact our pilot lead Tony Devenish.