“The reality is that the Active Places initiative has not yet covered grass pitches”


outline that in 2003/2004, some 959 applications for playing fields had been received and approved for development with 72 new ones actually created that year.


All well and good, but then the notice went on to put this into the context that in 2003/2004, there were some 44,000 playing pitches in existence at 21,000 sites across England. All hell broke loose with the National Playing Fields Association proclaiming that on that basis some 34,000 pitches across England had disappeared in the last 13 years, constituting a loss of 45 per cent. “These figures are truly appalling. We have been saying for years that the situation was bad but it is far worse than anyone suspected,” raged NPFA Director Alison Moore-Gwyn at the time. After the brouhaha died down, it became apparent that the 44,000 figure only related to football pitches and not all sports surfaces. The NPFA has welcomed the DCMS Active Places initiative, which has


established a £4.5m database


recording all the public sports location provision, but it still remains sceptical of government figures provided on the subject. “The reality is that the Active Places initiative has not yet covered grass pitches,” says NPFA Deputy Director Don Earley, “It will be an inventory of all pitches when finished and is an excellent project covering the supply side for all types of pitch ownership. But until finished, official data is questionable.” The NPFA was a pivotal consultant in a Department of Education and Skills- driven bill in August 2004, which saw stringent new rules put in place to make selling off playing fields more difficult for schools and local authorities. There have been other overtures made that would suggest, despite the odd spot of turbulence, that the NPFA’s and the DCMS’s flight paths on the issue are finally converging - well almost. “The NPFA accepts that the Government has put in place good initiatives, particularly for school playing fields,” concedes


Earley, before adding: “But complacency is the danger. There was a very small increase in the number of pitches and sites last year, but that will not remedy previous losses.” The trend towards playing field sell-offs has slowed down but on the flip side of this is how much more efficiently ground is being used nowadays. There’s a huge swing back to sport and therefore it's important to ensure that as many sports fields as possible are retained. While elite competitive sport hasn’t lost out, it has probably gained if anything with the provision of improved facilities, but for recreational sport, one only has to go around any village and see how many open spaces have been lost to developers.


THERE are reasons to be cheerful though as sports governing bodies look to swell the coffers with funding for facilities. Cricket, tennis, rugby and football have started to allocate funding and while the Green Spaces Programme has come to an end, Sport England is still


pursuing its remit. The Football Foundation also commissioned a register of football facilities, which shows 40,000-plus football pitches in this country.


The weak link in the chain, though, due to financial pressure exerted on it, is local authorities. Nearly 60 per cent of all surfaces are looked after by local authorities and in football, 84 per cent are under local authority responsibility. Unfortunately, while local authorities are told to produce good surfaces, there's only so much money available for basic maintenance. With many local authorities in such a position, some more forward-thinking sport administrative bodies are taking a far greater hands-on approach in tackling the problem. Through its Building Partnerships Programme, aimed at expansively increasing the number of people coming into the sport, the English Cricket Board (ECB) is actively helping local authorities create and maintain more pitches suitable for cricket. The organisation is


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