The Community Athletics Refurbishment Programme (CARP) was launched in the Autumn of 2002 and was part of the £41m programme to revitalise and modernise the sport.
CARP was a programme funded by the National Lottery and was administered by Sport England. £5m was made available to facilities providers to refurbish synthetic running tracks. Tracks that had been in receipt of lottery funding when they were originally built were excluded from the programme.
Sport England and UK Athletics, working with their partners in schools, universities, local authorities, other facility providers and England Athletics, distributed the £5m to the applicants. The facility providers themselves contributed a further £7m and, collectively, this ensured that 87 athletics tracks in England were restored to full use. In addition all 87 tracks have been fully equipped to enable disabled throwing events to be safely undertaken.
The final CARP awards were made in early 2006 and the programme has now been completed.
