Play – training for the unexpected!


Children’s play facilities are still an important aspect of leisure provision for young people but there is also a growing recognition of the place of X-sports in local authority open spaces’ and facilities strategies. Paul Barrett explains how some of KKP’s recent projects offer some pointers for the future.

To the casual observer it is easy to overlook play facilities as one of the essential elements of an open spaces or sports facility strategy. There they are: adjacent to or part of a park or open space, quiet for much of the day during the school week until they fill with children and accompanying adults when the school day ends. However, if you are or have been one of those parents or carers, you will be all too aware of how important these play spaces are to a huge number of people, younger and older, across the community.

The stated mission of Play England is for England ‘to be a child-friendly country where all children and young people have freedom to play at home, at school, in parks and public spaces…where all children and young people can regularly play and have the freedom (time, space, permission and opportunity) to do so’. It considers play to be ‘an essential part of every child’s life and vital for the enjoyment of childhood as well as social, emotional, intellectual and physical development’.

Play needs assessments and strategies often function as a starting point for consideration of facility provision in a wider context – sometimes as a stand-alone process but most often as part of an open spaces’ strategy. KKP’s extensive experience in this field includes recent play strategies for Reading, Dudley and South Somerset. Each of these is a good example of how play provision is about much more than the installation and maintenance of equipment.

First and foremost, it is vital to consider play sites as part of a whole environment. This starts with an assessment of supply and demand: has the area (usually a local authority area) got sufficient provision of the right scale and quality in the right places to provide for the communities that need them now. We then consider population growth and projected housing development and the extent to which they are going to create greater demand in the future?

These judgements are not subjective. Fields in Trust provides guidance and recommendations for different catchment areas for play provision, which offers a useful starting point. In its guidance, play areas are generally classified as LEAPS (local equipped areas of play) or the normally larger NEAPS (neighbourhood equipped areas of play). Each of which reflects likely requirements for space and facility provision. Having evaluated what is there, we review and analyse the catchment areas they serve verifying the extent to which provision can be deemed to be sufficient and accessible to key local communities and populations.

Provision gaps and the quality of what is ‘on site’ is then evaluated: is it well-located (in the right place!), visible, well-lit, safe? Are the facilities and equipment in place appropriate? Is the condition not only of the available equipment but of the surrounds, surfaces and adjacent spaces and amenities good or poor? Should/could it be replaced, reimagined or even relocated?

If there are deficiencies, we consider what can be done to meet the standards of the guidance and the expectations of local communities. However, the answers to such questions are rarely quick or simple.

Quality assessment of facilities is underpinned by consultation with local communities, local officers and those involved and engaged with young people and youth provision. These conversations, often delivered alongside site visits, reveal challenges and options that may not be immediately obvious to the outside eye. For example, it is not uncommon (and is often a positive idea) to locate children’s play space adjacent to basketball courts, skateparks, multi-use games areas (MUGAs), and informal football provision.

On occasions, however, the use of sports play spaces can be dominated by specific groups or sometime predominantly male users – which can then impact perceptions of play provision accessibility and safety. This prompts questions about what can be done to improve the relevance and quality of provision for disabled people or to actively encourage women’s and girls’ usage and activities. This encompasses what facilities (and combinations thereof) might work best and how spaces can be made welcoming for everyone who might want to use them. Sport England has published useful guidance on how to make facilities look, feel and be safer for women and girls.

In addition, while provision of facilities and activities for young people is often well supported by local residents, there can be an underlying assumption among some that ‘youth provision’ is inevitably accompanied by anti-social behaviour. However, frustrating such assumptions might be, they need to be discussed and addressed if strategies are to be optimally effective. This is addressed via consultation with local youth groups and those who will use specific facilities. In addition to seeking to address the concerns of residents and stakeholders, this can also work to ensure that young people ‘own’ (and are subsequently inclined to use and look after) any new play equipment installed.

Alongside play strategies, we also assess cycling and walking access and related strategies. A recent assignment for Northwest Leicestershire Council involved assessing linkages between residential areas, key places of work, education, leisure, heritage, retail and other amenities across four main areas of population. Working extensively with Sustrans, we delivered extensive consultation with local communities, stakeholders and interested groups (of which there were many) all of which asked interesting questions and made constructive suggestions – helping produce a better outcome as the strategy progressed. This was supplemented via the use of data sources as an evidence base to support route proposals. These included the Propensity to Cycle Tool, an online and interactive planning support device which provides an evidence base to inform investment in cycling.

A, just completed, KKP facility strategy assignment which falls firmly into the ‘out of the ordinary’ category is our work assessing need for action (X) sport (skateboarding, BMX, in-line skating and scootering) facilities in Manchester. Reflecting the increased profile of skateboarding and BMX following their inclusion in the Olympic Games it is intended to build on the connection with younger participants and competitors and to cater more effectively for the high level of participation and interest in the City.

In Manchester we assessed the feasibility (and the potential component elements) of a major skateboarding and freestyle BMX indoor facility as part of its elite sport provision. This process was undertaken alongside a needs assessment and the development of a strategy for provision of new and improved skate and BMX facilities at outdoor and park sites across the city.

In implementing this, the City is looking to offer a high-quality, easily accessible network of X-sport venues. These will both better serve the recreational ambitions of people in all its communities and, possibly, offer an entry point via which someone ends up on the path to elite competition and Olympic glory.

While the sports themselves are relatively new to the realm of elite and certainly Olympic competition, the planning process remains essentially the same. It incorporates in-depth data-collection, effective use of KKP’s sector-leading geographic information systems (GIS) to assess accessibility and reach into key communities plus a wide range of community-based meetings and consultation.

We gathered the views of local residents, existing facility users and interest groups, liaised with the national governing bodies of the various sports, conducted numerous site visits and extensive research to create a range of proposals and options for viable and sustainable facilities that will both stimulate use and stand the test of time.

The process also involved KKP team members assessing the approach taken to developing outdoor action sports facilities in European cities such as Malmo and Bordeaux and visiting existing indoor/outdoor skateboarding provision in Northamptonshire, Nottingham and Lancashire.

While these highly valuable learning opportunities took us out of our immediate sporting comfort zones, we are looking forward to revealing our inner X sport radical selves in due course. To provide accurate and informed assessments of the installation and maintenance costs of provision KKP worked with Abacus Associates and, given its extensive experience of skate and BMX facility design, we are confident that our team will emerge from this process with a first-class strategy and only minor grazes.

The City of Manchester is forward looking in the way in which it is considering investment in such facilities. The newly acquired elite status of X sports fits well with Manchester’s vision of itself as a national and international focal point for both elite and community sport – and play. With a large, diverse population, good regional connections and national transport links, numerous NGBs have already made it their home in and X sports are a welcome addition to the roster.

Paul Barrett is a senior consultant with KKP.

KKP to deliver national officials feasibility study for Ireland

Sport Ireland, working in partnership with Sport Northern Ireland, has commissioned KKP to deliver research, consultation and recommendations to inform development of a national technical officials’ development plan (TODP) for Ireland.

This action directly reflects, and is an immediate response to, commitments made in, Sport Ireland’s recently launched Statement of Strategy 2023-2027 and Sport NI’s Corporate Plan 2021-26.

It follows hard on the heels of the Review of Women’s Sports Officiating in Ireland undertaken by KKP in 2022 and will utilise and build upon the findings of that process. The TODP report will:

  • Identify and describe the range of roles undertaken by technical officials in Ireland.
  • Assess levels of activity among technical officials in Irish sport and consider the key factors which affect recruitment, retention and attrition.
  • Evaluate the needs of technical officials and of those who support them.
  • Review the support currently provided to technical officials and those working to support them.
  • Make recommendations about what should be included in the TODP and how it should be led, resourced and managed.

Sport Ireland and Sport NI are actively seeking to secure strong support for this process from NGBs (all Ireland and NI) plus the active participation and support of other key agencies such as LSPs and third sector education providers. To this end, NGBs and others with an interest in this process are being encouraged to:

  • Confirm their willingness to be consulted and to indicate who, within their organisations might be the most appropriate contact.
  • Make it possible to include as many current and former technical officials as possible from the widest cross-section of sports in a national survey – scheduled to be conducted in spring 2024.

Consultation, survey and focus group/ workshop processes will include and capture the views of:

  • People involved (an a paid/voluntary basis) in the recruitment/organisation/training/support of officials.
  • Current/aspiring/former paid and voluntary technical officials from a wide range of individual/ team sports, disability sport and sports where specialist officiating is required.
  • Officials ‘covering’ all levels and types of technical experience and the full range of roles.
  • People with expertise/opinions in respect of volunteering issues for officials and knowledgeable representatives from the education system and LSPs.

The process is scheduled to run between November 2023 and May 2024.

Project leads are Fiona Larkin at Sport Ireland (flarkin@sportireland.ie) and Michael Cooke from Sport Northern Ireland (michaelcooke@sportni.net).

**

KKP is one of the UK’s largest independent sport and leisure management practices. It delivers planning, consultancy and research services to the sports sector in the UK, Ireland, China and Southeast Asia.

Contact: John Eady (CEO) john.eady@kkp.co.uk

 

Ensuring that strategic housing development sites bring the right level of leisure provision. (Why an up-to-date evidence base is so important).

All needs assessments/strategies, as standard, provide detailed scenarios setting out the level of future demand generated from population increases derived from housing growth. In the case of indoor and built facilities strategies (IBF) and playing pitch strategies (PPS) they also, as appropriate and applicable, detail the associated costs of supplying increased sports provision using Sport England’s calculators.

In our expereince, developments of 600+ dwellings tend to generate demand for the creation of new outdoor sports provision.  The presumption is that larger housing expansion schemes will generate demand for sports such as football. Consideration is normally given to the potential for provision of multi-pitch sites with suitable ancillary provision i.e., clubhouse/changing facilities and car parking. Providing single, even double, grass pitch sites is no longer considered to offer long-term sustainability for pitch sports.

An early KKP foray into major new settlement planning was the Elms Park development in Northwest Cheltenham on the boundary of Cheltenham and Tewkesbury authorities. This incorporated plans for 4,000+ homes and the best practice and design considerations provided followed our production of the joint authority Social, Sport & Open Spaces Study (including PPS).

Primarily though, our needs assessments/strategies are key to informing the need for sports provision to be secured as part of strategic housing developments. Initial proposals on the 5,500 dwelling Hanwood Park development in Kettering – particularly in relation to provision of artificial pitches for hockey, were challenged, updated and improved following our production of the 2020 Kettering PPS, IBF and Open Space Study.  The overall process was testament to the fact that constructive and open dialogue with NGBs is critical to successful development of new provision. Crucially, it is not just about providing the facilities, but assessing who is going to use them, at what level and based upon what degree of predicted community and sport value and sustainability.

Master planning for the 4,000+ home New Lubbesthorpe development in the Blaby District Council area was also informed by the Authority’s PPS. In addition to the inclusion of a range of woodland walks, cycle paths and green open space, the recommendations set out in its FA/Football Foundation generated local football facilities plan were also pivotal to the Authority securing funding for new leisure facilities and all-weather sports pitches plus full-sized 3G pitches linked to a new secondary school development.

The 2021 South Worcestershire IBF and PPS informed cross-boundary community swimming pool, sports hall, fitness and pitch provision requirements linked to housing development at a range of strategic development sites the largest of which, at 5,000 homes, was at Worcestershire Parkway.

In Carlisle, we have been assessing the provision required to service demand generated by the new resident base in the St Cuthberts Garden Village which will have a planned 10,000 homes. Plans for recreation and leisure provision are being informed by the City’s Playing Pitch & Outdoor Sports Strategy 2022. It is likely to include at least one sports hub plus community use provision at the new secondary school. Of all the sites included in the Government’s Garden Village programme, St Cuthbert’s is one of the largest in terms of potential capacity and is among the most ambitious development projects being actively progressed in the north of England.

Bringing things right up to the present, the Colchester & Tendring Borders Garden Community (8,000 homes) is being informed via the joint-authority commissioned Colchester & Tendring Open Space, Sport & Recreation suite of studies (including IBF, PPS and open spaces strategy) 2023 and the Lancaster South, Bailrigg Garden Village will be informed via the Open Space Study and new PPS which will be completed by mid-2023.

The Government believes that the development of locally-led garden towns and villages has the potential to deliver the homes that communities need and that, in addition to providing new homes, they also bring new jobs and boost local economies. Whether one agrees with this form of development as a way forward, the quality and scale of open space, sport and leisure provision is pivotal to the subsequent quality of life in these new, and the adjacent existing, communities. Key to this is having a full understanding and evidence base – and ensuring that it is fully addressed.

Claire Fallon is principal consultant and director at KKP

Picture courtesy of the Leicester Mercury

February 2023

Keen competitive footballer Carmel Daniel considers the implications of the FA’s plans for girl’s football

The FA Inspiring Positive Change Strategy and its Let Girls Play campaign support its strategic ambition to give all girls what it describes as ‘equal access to play football’ in school. At present, according to the FA, 63% per cent of schools currently offer girl’s football in PE lessons and its target is to raise this figure to 75% of schools providing this by 2024.

The #LetGirlsPlay campaign supports this ambition by encouraging people to stop, listen and see how they can make a difference to this current challenge. Its website provides resources to help influence the start of change and allow more girls to feel the mental and physical benefits of exercise through playing football.

The Lionesses’ have called for a nationwide shake-up to the way sports are taught, telling the Government that “this is an opportunity to make a difference” and asking it to make it a priority to invest in girls’ football in schools, so that ‘every girl has a choice’.

Baroness Sue Campbell noted that ‘currently, only a third of girls aged 5-18 participate in football every week and suggested that ‘now is the time to drive a far-reaching ambition to open up the game in every way to girls’ indicating that the Let Girls Play campaign ‘allows parents and teachers to play a huge role in joining us in this commitment’.

While this is an understandable ambition for football it does raise a few issues.

The phrase ‘equal access’ is somewhat loaded and, arguably, inappropriately emotive. Does the equality reference relate to boys or is football being equated with other notionally girls’ sports. If it does relate to boys is the implicit assumption (or proven situation) that all boys have ‘access to football’?

If it is to gain this greater foothold on the PE curriculum, what must give way – netball, hockey, badminton, athletics, gymnastics, dance? Would provision of equal access to football be damaging to these other sports/activities or is this an FA desire to create an Orwellian scenario where all sports are equal but some are more equal than others!

The influential Women’s Sports & Fitness Foundation Changing the Game for Girls report notes that the National Curriculum is already broad enough to allow teachers, in consultation with girls, to choose activities that will be engaging and motivating to female students.

Leaving this to one side, is there evidence to suggest that there is a clamour among girls to gain equal access to football. It is possible that ‘equal access to football’ may simply amount to the extension of imposition of a curriculum on an unwilling and un-consulted audience?

In her article: Girls should get the chance to play football at school – but PE needs a major rehaul for all students (published 4 August 2022 in The Conversation, Shrehan Lynch; Senior Lecturer in Initial Teacher Education at the University of East London notes that ‘a narrow curriculum is often informed by teachers’ own sporting love affairs.

Her view is that this can be seen in the continued recycling of traditional sports, like football, rugby, cricket and athletics for boys and dance, netball, rounders and athletics for girls’. She suggests that ‘a negotiated curriculum would be far more beneficial, giving young people choices in what they want to participate in and how’.

She also makes the point that ‘there are many other ways to make PE more modern and equitable…’ and that ‘schools often don’t realise they are engaging in highly inequitable practices and offering little choice to students, because many teachers simply mimic their own experiences of PE’.

She goes on to proffer the theory that ‘instead of seeing that their role is to ensure all young people can find ways of enjoying movement that can be carried throughout life, they (PE teachers – male and female) just continue the cycle of outdated and uninspiring PE’.

The Childwise Monitor Report 2022; based on a survey of more than 2,700 children aged 5-16 across the UK between September and November 2021 found that the sports gender gap per se had widened last year, with boys playing an extra hour on average more than girls. It suggests that girls play around half the amount of football, rugby and cricket as boys in secondary schools and that girls aged between 11-16 were offered around half the amount of coaching in traditionally ‘male’ sports last year compared to boys of the same age.

It also found that 33% of girls aged 11-16 reported playing football at secondary school, compared with 63% of boys and noted the considerable drop compared with primary-age children where 54% of girls aged 7-10 said they played football last year, compared to 80% of boys.

According to Childwise, (un)equal access is comparably prevalent in rugby in which girls (14%) in secondary school played less than half the amount as boys (29%) and cricket (12% – girls / 21% – boys). The cricket figure is, arguably, of greater concern given that cricket coaching at primary school is relatively equal; 21% of girls aged 7-10 reporting having received training in the sport last year compared to 24% of boys.

The Childwise Report showed that girls still tend to take part in more traditionally ‘feminine’ sports such as netball and gymnastics, which typically get less airtime than football, cricket and rugby. At secondary level, girls played almost five times the amount of netball last year than boys (61% of girls aged 11-16 had received coaching compared to 13% of boys). Girls also did more than three times more gymnastics than boys; 8% of boys aged 11-16 were offered training in the sport during PE compared to 30% of girls.

Perhaps it is simply team games opportunity for girls about which people should be concerned given that while girls are offered broad access to such sport in primary school, opportunities tend to drop off once they reach secondary education.

Arguably, it is more important to consider this issue in respect of the influence that football could have in respect of girl’s PE and sport in schools per se. The entire England Lionesses squad urged the Government to commit to giving girls at least two hours of PE lessons each week.

Labour has also called on the Government to introduce an “Equal Access Guarantee” for schools, which would ensure that girls and boys are offered equal access to sports during PE lessons. Shadow Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson urged the Government to update current guidance which recommends that while boys can be taught traditionally ‘male’ sports on boys-only teams, girls should be offered “comparable” sports.

The DfE insists that it is up to individual schools to decide what sports to teach, noting that swimming is the only one which is compulsory on the national curriculum.

Clearly there is no right or wrong ambition or answer, but perhaps the focus of the FA (and other sports) should start by reflecting the Lionesses’ demand that the Government commits to girls getting two hours of (preferably high quality) PE before we start dividing the spoils?

Carmel Daniel is a consultant at KKP

 

January 2023

 

Optimising the value of your strategic planning

In its Strategic Outcomes Planning Guidance, Sport England states that ’a strategic approach to sport and physical activity services and provision, which identifies and delivers local priorities, can make such a difference’. It notes that ‘a clear, strategic and sustainable approach can play an important role in making sure that investments into services and facilities are effective’.

Professor Cliff Hague, Emeritus Professor of Planning and Spatial Development at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh quoted on the RTPI website states that “today there are 180,000 more people living in urban areas than there were yesterday. There will be another 180,000 there when you wake up tomorrow and another 180,000 the day after that”. While this might be over-stating the case it does focus attention upon the way in which urban areas are expanding.

The RTPI notes that ‘planning is about people, places and sustainability’ and ‘improving public health and living conditions’. There is no doubt that the demand created by population changes, housing growth and the stresses of everyday life necessitate leisure provision of a scale and quality to cater for the sporting, active recreation, health, wellbeing and relaxation needs of the community.

With this in mind, and in looking to ensure that they obtain maximum value for money, local authorities are increasingly commissioning indoor and built sports facilities (IBF), playing pitch and outdoor sports facilities (PPOSS) and open/green spaces (OSS) needs assessments and strategies via a single overarching commission – a full suite. Many are also now teaming up with neighbouring authorities to do this.

The key benefits of full suite leisure needs assessments include:

  • Simultaneous, consistent assessment of the quality and value of related, linked and adjacent leisure and open space resources.
  • Ensuring that the way in which local authorities plan for their indoor, outdoor, formal and informal recreational facilities reflects commitments made with regard to the health and wellbeing of their communities.
  • The opportunity to work with officers and members to improve their collective focus on, and generate detailed appreciation of, local needs and priorities and the importance of provision at authority level.
  • More efficient council officer (and member) focus and use of time and resource.
  • Adoption of ‘joined up’ cohesive approaches to securing and making most effective use of S.106 and Community Infrastructure Levy funds.
  • Improved cross-disciplinary consideration of smaller (and more dispersed) outdoor, countryside and water sports plus active lifestyles and active travel related issues. (This is also attractive to key stakeholders such as Sport England).
  • In addition to actively demonstrating the duty to co-operate, joint authority commissions tend to engender and enhance cross-boundary planning in respect of optimising investment in leisure infrastructure and meeting sub-regional spatial planning demand for housing.
  • Reduced procurement time, effort, and cost

Because of the breadth of our skills and knowledge base and company capacity, KKP has been delivering these cross-disciplinary studies for 15+ years. Early examples of joint authority work include assignments delivered for Worthing and Adur councils in West Sussex, for Cheltenham and Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire (linked to a major cross-border urban extension) and for the three central Lancashire authorities of Preston, Chorley and South Ribble.

Our portfolio of full suite assignments includes local authorities as diverse as Wirral, East Suffolk, Wyre Forest, Kettering, South Hertfordshire (a combination of Three Rivers, Dacorum and Hertsmere), Staffordshire Moorlands & High Peak (joint commission) and Manchester. We are following this with an innovative assessment specifically related to BMX, skateboarding and action sport provision in the City.

Current full suite clients include Warrington, Wyre. St Helens, the new West Northamptonshire unitary authority, Colchester and Tendring. The latter comprise a joint authority needs assessment and strategy linked to a planned cross-boundary major garden village development.

Full suite and joint commissioning also delivers substantial economies of scale, particularly with regard to site audit and evaluation. Client savings for a full suite of studies for a single authority commission can amount to 10-15% of combined costs with this increasing further when authorities commission jointly.

If you would like to discuss this further with one of our experts – get in touch.

 

John Eady is the CEO of KKP.