Comments on: Edmund Jessop on the selling off of school playing fields and encouraging young people into sport

By: Marcus Kingwell

Marcus Kingwell — Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:35:00 +0000

Edmund, some important points but I think you are mixing up a few things here. The changes in legislation will make it easier for schools to sell their playing fields. The vast majority of school playing fields are totally inaccessible for the public. So selling off school playing fields will have no impact on informal physical activity but it will impact on competitive sport played at school. And I would argue that competitive sport at school is hugely important. The real issues for school playing fields are access and quality. If a school has a poor quality playing field which aren’t used, why not sell it and use the proceeds to improve the quality of the playing fields which remain….and provide public access out of school hours. This should be spelt out in DfE guidance and local authority planning policy.

By: notactualsize

notactualsize — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:42:00 +0000

Physical activity is important for all of us, not only younger people.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 10:58:00 +0000

A very refreshing view. Perhaps we could start by encouraging local authorities not to ban cycling, skateboarding and ‘ball games’ in most municipal green spaces. We seem to divide urban green spaces into ‘parks’, where walking and sitting are the only acceptable activities, and ‘recreation grounds’ devoted to organised, book-in-advance competitive sports. Neither is helpful for kids who want to run around and play for an hour after school.

I’m not sure grass is essential – we never minded asphalt or dirt. But you need space, and you need the space near to where the children are, not a car-drive away.