Nick Higham: A plan to create new playing fields

The money will come from the New Opportunities Fund, the latest organisation set up to distribute lottery money.

The fund is already handing out lottery cash for projects like healthy living centres and after-school homework clubs.

Chris Smith: "Bringing green space into the urban concrete jungle"

Culture secretary Chris Smith unveiled the latest plan, a "green spaces initiative".

It will allow schools, councils and community groups to apply grants to improve their local environment.

The grants will be available for various schemes:

• Buying unused derelict land to create new parks and green areas
• Improving existing public spaces
• Encouraging access to the countryside
• Helping the environment through recycling schemes
• Creating community wildlife gardens
• Improving waste management
• Encouraging business to use green technologies

But central to the scheme is a reversal of the trend by schools and local authorities to sell off sports fields to balance their budgets.

Chris Smith wants more playgrounds

In December the government effectively banned further sales. Now it is looking to former industrial sites to provide replacements.

Mr Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "Thousands of sites over the last few decades have gone. These must be maintained wherever possible.