Sport England has launched a new £1m initiative designed to improve access to community sports facilities for disabled people.

The scheme will fund free training courses to help coaches, leaders, assistants and parents to develop the skills and confidence to include disabled people in sporting activity. The courses will be run by the English Federation of Disability Sport and sports coach UK.

Clubs across the UK where disabled people play sport will also be able to join in the Sainsbury's Active Kids scheme, benefiting from free equipment and experiences through voucher collection.

The number of disabled people playing sport at least once a week has increased by 160,000 over the past year and Sport England has been tasked with increasing participation levels further.

One in six disabled adults play sport regularly, compared to one in three non-disabled adults.

Culture secretary Maria Miller said: "This is exactly the kind of legacy we want to see from the 2012 Paralympic Games.

"The Paralympics made the UK think about disability differently and I hope that it is the first of many public / private partnerships aimed at developing disability sport at the grassroots."