05 August 2005
A small rise in the number of playing fields in England is not enough to mask the dramatic loss in facilities that has taken place over the past 13 years, sports campaigners said this week.
The National Playing Fields Association said it was 'appalling' that almost 34,000 sports pitches had disappeared since 1992.
The association's director, Alison Moore-Gwyn, said: 'Even allowing for the few new fields that have been created in the past 13 years, we have lost nearly 45% of our stock of sports pitches. By any standards, this is a shameful record.'
Last month, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport claimed that, for the first time, the number of playing fields was growing. Of the 959 playing field sites approved for development, only 4% were deemed to be detrimental to sporting provision.
Most included new sports centres, tennis courts or athletics tracks or were, in 132 cases, like-for-like replacements. But they also showed that, despite the creation of 72 new sites last year, there were now 44,000 playing pitches in England compared with almost 78,000 in 1992.
Moore-Gwyn said: 'This is the first time that the government has released figures like this, and it shows how urgently we need to have regular, reliable and transparent statistics about the loss of playing fields.
'Sports minister] Richard Caborn will continue to have our support in anything he does to try to reverse this trend – but neither Labour nor the Conservatives have anything in their record to be proud of so far. In 13 years, this country appears to have squandered nearly half our children's inheritance.'
Caborn said the government was beginning to turn the tide on the playing field issue but added: 'We are not complacent. There is always more to do and the government is continuing to work to further improve the protection afforded to more playing fields.'
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