Community Sports Facilities
Debate between Justin Tomlinson and Phillip Lee(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Dr Lee
That is an important intervention. Many times, the local builder or plumbing firm sponsors the football shirts. My hon. Friend is right.
Organisations such as the Football Foundation need to work in partnership with communities and councils, in order to establish much needed sports facilities. I do not know whether anyone here has tried to book a five-a-side football pitch anywhere in the country. It is a woeful situation; it is not possible to get space on those pitches. Why have we not got more of them? The reason at the moment, I think, is that the foundation is struggling to get match funding from councils. Perhaps the Minister might look at making it a statutory requirement for councils to concentrate on leisure facilities. He might say to councils that cutting sports facilities will increase Government expense in the provision of health care services.
Justin Tomlinson
On that point, as I mentioned in my speech, local authorities can look at this as an opportunity. My local authority invested through Invest to Save, paid the money off in 13 months and has been making a profit ever since. Because there is such a chronic shortage, 3G football pitches are potentially very profitable.
Dr Lee
My hon. Friend is right. To quote the phrase of “instant gratification” used by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West, the difficulty is that it is all about the instant—it is about how to cut and balance the books. No long-term perspective is taken. The reality is that if I play football for a year, that is not likely to make an impact on my health when I am 70. This has to happen over a number of decades in order to get the return. A longer perspective on the part of councils and Government needs to be taken.
There has been the woeful selling of school fields. I drove past a school near where I live: we have more flats and more houses and fewer school pitches. It is lamentable, particularly in the year of the Olympics and the European football championships and in a country that is passionate about sport. I have stood on football terraces up and down the country. People are passionate about sport, about their club winning—not competing or taking part but winning. I think we can harness that. The best way to do that is to ensure that there are sustainable facilities.
In conclusion, my constituency is a model of how communities can engage in and support sport, financially and through participation. The well-being of the community is much enhanced in the process. Sport and the provision of community sports facilities can lead to better health, behaviour and community spirit.