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Ben Bradshaw, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has visited Liverpool to see The Everton Foundation's next project in action.

The Minister visited Parklands School in Speke to watch a taster session of the programme as schoolchildren demonstrated the activities on offer.

The programme, titled PL4Sport is a department of Culture, Media and Sport initiative in Partnership with the Premier League to increase the number of hours and opportunities for young people to engage in physical activity.

PL4Sport is comprised of four Olympic sports - Badminton, Table Tennis, Volleyball and Judo, and Everton will be developing a 'hub club' for each sport to allow youngsters to provide pathways for young people to progress in their chosen sport beyond school hours.

The programme's target is to engage 500 young people over a 2.5 year period and provide them with an easy transition from school to club sport.

The Everton Foundation will work in partnership with Liverpool Football Club and each sport's governing body to launch the programme, which will officially start in November.

The Everton Foundation's community sports partnership officer, Jackie Twort, said:

"The initiative is built of minority sports, but they are also Olympic sports as the scheme is geared towards London 2012 and beyond to get children active now and after the Olympic Games. It's really important to keep the children active.

"It's great to have Ben Bradshaw here because it's a great new initiative and it's great for him to kick-start it for us and to see the programme in action.

"Hopefully he was impressed and he will give us more support in the future."