Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Saijd Javid gave his full support yesterday for a dynamic new, £800,000 state of the art, eco-friendly Watersports Centre in the heart of Taunton. He visited at the invitation of Prospective Conservative MP for Taunton Deane Rebecca Pow, who is working with the team from the COACH charity masterminding the project, to bring attention to the project and to attract the final tranche of £120,000 required to make the project a reality next year.

‘It was wonderful to get The Secretary of State here to see the proposed Watersports Centre project for himself. This will be a much needed community hub and is exactly the kind of facility we need to offer our young people. It’s encouraging them to get outside, take exercise and benefit from a healthy lifestyle’ says Rebecca who has already helped secure much of the funding for the scheme through a highly successful event staged earlier in the year with Olympic rower, James Cracknell.

The Watersports Centre in Taunton has already received positive local support and has secured the lion’s share of the funding from Sport England (£450,000) and Taunton Deane Council (£200,000) with Bishop Fox’s Educational Foundation and Canoe England adding a further £75,000. "Thank you to Rebecca, to the local councillors and everyone else that has helped to reach what we thought was unattainable" said Ian Payne, Chairman of COACH.

Sajid Javid was optimistic that the outstanding funding would be forthcoming ‘'I can see how passionate you are as a town, and how involved everyone has been. It shows what you can do when a community comes together. It will be great for the community and young people, and it's great that following on from the 2012 Olympics, Taunton Deane will now have something to get its young people into sport. It's fantastic news that already, you have 80% of the money you need. This is one of the best community projects we have seen.'

COACH is bringing access to youth sport and educational opportunities in Taunton. The Watersports Centre will also be a key to regeneration of the River Tone corridor running through the town. The project has the backing of local schools and Somerset College with Conservative-led Taunton Deane Borough Council as a partner.