Some of the documents referenced in this feature can be found online:
■ Reuniting Health with Planning: Healthier Homes, Healthier Communities
www.health-club.co.uk/TCPA ■ Active Design: Promoting opportunities for sport and physical activity through good design
www.health-club.co.uk/
sportengland_activedesign ■ City Health Check
www.health-club.co.uk/ cityhealthcheck
can bring many benefi ts in terms of increased use, more revenue, improved sustainability and better supervision.
Maximising use
In its City Health Check document, RIBA recommended the production of Healthy Infrastructure Action Plans in local authorities that comprise less than 50 per cent green space and/or have a housing density of over 5 per cent, with the idea that these might be partly funded through the Community Infrastructure Levy.
fl oodlights to extend hours of use and constructing ‘trim trails’. But although there’s still a range of funding sources for developing and improving sports facilities, particu- larly for the voluntary sector, local authorities have seen their budgets for provision, enhancement and mainte- nance severely reduced, and also have fewer personnel to promote, super- vise and manage them. Meanwhile, well over half of all sports facilities are located on school, college and univer- sity sites; we need to encourage their use by the wider community, not only to make the best use of resources but also to show young people that being active is important for their whole life. We need to link all these existing facilities in to the Active Design move- ment, and try to bridge the divides that exist between fi tness and sport, between indoor and outdoor facilities and between public, educational and commercial sites. It’s wonderful to have new cycleways and footpaths, but
ISSUE 4 2014 © cybertrek 2014
wherever possible let’s try to link them to other existing activity destinations – sports centres, outdoor and indoor pools, astroturf pitches, grass pitches, tennis courts, allotments, beaches, riv- ers and school sports facilities. We can use open space in parks more effectively too, by providing shel- tered seating and meeting points, water fountains and outdoor showers, measured walking tracks, wildfl ower meadows and healthy food outlets. Many such projects are being funded through the Fields in Trust (formerly the NPFA) and its Queen Elizabeth II Fields initiative, which set out to permanently protect outdoor recreational spaces. On a positive note, some sports cen- tres are already using health sector funding to provide bicycles and setting up local cycling networks; others are increasingly used as bases for running and cycling events. But as further food for thought, how about converting dis- used tennis courts to small allotment areas? Co-locating facilities in this way
A spin-off from this could be the creation of fi tness trails that set out measured routes by foot or bicycle linking ‘activity destinations’, with opportunities to stop off along the way. It would be great to encourage people using these to become volunteers and responsibly monitor use of facilities, so that as well as benefi ting their own health, they are helping others. Indeed, some local authorities are already training volunteers to check for litter and damage to play areas and paddling pools, so they can notify the local authority if there’s a problem to attend to, thus making more effi cient use of maintenance staff’s time. As well as taking responsibility for our own health, we need to take responsibility for our active environ- ment, as in this era of reduced public sector expenditure we risk losing any sports and fi tness facilities we don’t use. There are already many wonderful opportunities out there – let’s encour- age their use as effectively as we can. ●
Read Leisure Management online
leisuremanagement.co.uk/digital 53
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116