Mike Gatting bats for kids with learning disabilities

Former England cricket captain Mike Gatting is backing a 400,000 pound-play area project aimed at inspiring at least 30,000 children with learning disabilities and communication issues.

The project, which is the first of its kind, will include 12 sensory play areas across the country that intends to increase spatial awareness, concentration, relaxation and alertness by stimulating their senses.

The play areas are scheduled to be completed before 2012 to tie in with the Olympics, and will see one of the rooms opened at Stratford, home of the Olympics. 

Gatting is fronting the project and believes that it will give the London Olympics a lasting legacy.

“To me it's about them being able to participate in something they wouldn't normally to be able to do, and feel apart of something,” Sky News quoted Gatting, as saying.

“It gives them the ability to compete,” he added.