To enable hockey to grow and to meet the needs of current and future players, it is essential that sufficient quality, accessible sustainable facilities are provided in a network across the country. To ensure that it is best placed to achieve this, England Hockey (EH) appointed KKP to develop the Hockey National Facility Strategy. This:
- Sets out the vision, mission and objectives for the sport in respect of protection, improvement and expansion of the number and availability of appropriate hockey pitch facilities.
- Illustrates how EH will gather, store and analyse the information it needs to best plan for and meet current and future demand for hockey facilities.
- Describes the other actions that EH will, working with partners, take to ensure that the facilities base for hockey is invested in, maintained and developed.
It sets out how EH will proactively protect and plan for hockey by maximising its effectiveness informing and influencing the content of local playing pitch strategies. A key element of this is KKP’s creation of a highly effective interactive database via which demand and supply can be identified and planned for at national, area and local authority level.
Running in parallel with EH’s Games Management System this will ensure that accurate, up-to-date detail with regard to pitch quality, player numbers, match-play and training demand are also consistently updated – leaving EH in a authoritative position to defend proposed facility loss and/or pursue specific facility developments and improvements.