Partnership project benefits local children

Herefordshire Housing has scored points with children in Tupsley, Hereford by providing them with a set of goal posts.

Residents from the North Tupsley Action Group (N-TAG) have been working in conjunction with Herefordshire Housing to get the goal posts for the local children to give them somewhere to play and they saw the rewards of their hard work go into action recently, when they celebrated the official launch with a football coaching event.

Herefordshire Housing arranged for Paul Carpenter and his team of F.A coaches to come along and teach the local children football skills and goal scoring techniques. They also held a mini-football match and the children with the best overall performance were rewarded with trophies.

Community Support Officer, Leeanne Marwick and Youth Services worker, Lorna Wood, who work closely with the local children have already seen the benefits the goal posts have had for the local community and Lorna is now holding regular football coaching sessions for the children. Members of N-TAG are especially pleased with the new facilities knowing that their hard work has paid off.

The children started to use the goal posts on the very first day they were installed and we are extremely pleased to see that more and more children are now using these new facilities. We have been working closely with Herefordshire Housing on this and without their help and permission to use their land this would not have been possible. Sally Hollingshead of N-TAG.

Local councillor Marcell Lloyd-Hayes and parliamentary candidate Sarah Carr joined the local children and members of N-TAG, Herefordshire Housing and Herefordshire Voluntary Action for the official ribbon cutting ceremony.

The goal posts were donated free of charge by Herefordshire Council and Jim Lambert of the Herefordshire Sports Council and were installed by Herefordshire Housings Grounds Maintenance team who also arranged for them to be painted by local contractor Nigel Whittington.