NATURAL TURF
Alex Welsh, chief executive of the London Playing Fields Foundation, highlights the causes and effects of playing fields’ demise
Protecting playing fields, improving lives
F
rom the audit that was under- taken by the Sports Council in 1990 it was estimated that there are more than 78,000 sports
pitches housed in 26,000 playing fields in England. Twenty years later, according to Sport England’s Active Places, there are 59,000 pitches within 19,000 sites, repre- senting a 21 per cent reduction in pitch provision and a 27 per cent drop in the number of playing fields.
The loss Losing pitches is bad news for our two na- tional sports in their drive to increase and sustain grassroots participation. In 1990,
LPFF CEO Alex Welsh
there were 1,126 grass cricket wickets in London but by 2010 this figure had fallen by 40 per cent to 681. In the same period the number of adult grass football pitches in the capital had dropped by 20 per cent. Ironically at a time when the 2012
Games has put the spotlight on sport, investment in grassroots sport has fallen and we are in the middle of a perfect funding storm created by swingeing cuts in local authority spending, huge cuts in public funding and a 33 per cent drop in philanthropic giving.
The causes There are two main reasons for the demise of playing fields: 1) Losses through neglect: Due to chronic lack of investment in ancillary facilities and in the regular maintenance of pitches, playing fields fall into a cycle of decay where they become under used, under valued, under financed and eventually under threat. No longer used by the com- munity for sport they descend into havens of anti-social behaviour and are viewed by the land owner as surplus to requirements.
2) Losses to development: Playing fields are vulnerable whatever the state of the economy. In boom times land becomes more valuable and attractive to commer- cial and residential developers. In lean times playing fields become a burden on already stretched resources. For schools seeking to increase their roll with a con- comitant expansion of their building stock, using part of the school field has, until recent tighter legislation, been a relatively easy option. The main reason why so many sites
are vulnerable is that playing fields are inherently loss-making because the true running costs can never be adequately covered by hiring income derived from community groups. This is compounded by a number of contributory factors: • Lack of revenue to adequately main- tain sports pitches has led to a gradual decline in the quality of playing surfac- es, particularly for cricket, and this has led to some facilities being taken out of commission. • Lack of modernisation due to chron- ic under investment has left many sites
As a result of its Fields At Risk Register, the foundation was able to take pre-emptive action and secure the long-term future of 15 threatened sites last year
Issue 3 2011 © cybertrek 2011 Read Sports Management online
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