While the nation's warm glow in the aftermath of the Olympics slowly cools, attention turns, quite rightly, to the capabilities of our schools to actually deliver grass-roots sport facilities. An estimated 10,000 playing fields were disposed of between 1979 and 1997 and rather than the debate being driven by the nonsense that competitive sport is somehow damaging to an individual's self esteem, the real problem comes down to the fact that the spaces previously available for sport have diminshed drastically. Under the circumstances, the £10 M available for grass sports through the government's Places People Play scheme pales into insignificance compared to the £9.2 billion spent on the Olympic games; this is in fact a fraction of the sum spent on the opening ceremony alone!
So let's not get too excited about the government pumping money into developing school playing fields, especially since they abandoned the 'Building Schools for the Future' programme. Cash is so much more effective than mere words which is all that we are getting at the moment.
We happen to be of the view that playing fields are about more than just competitive sport. Young people in particular need space to 'hang out' and to develop their own games, connections and inter-personal skills. Human beings are naturally relaxed when in green and open surroundings and such places benefit the environment and the people in them in a 'win-win' situation. (I know of a renowned botanist that became interested in plants by looking at the grass species and the weeds in the less frequently used parts of the cricket outfield where he was fielding.) In addition to sport provision, these are creative spaces we are talking about here. So while we at Agrostis try to provide the highest standard of sports facility, we're also fully mindful of the wider purposes of the spaces we create.
So let's not get too excited about the government pumping money into developing school playing fields, especially since they abandoned the 'Building Schools for the Future' programme. Cash is so much more effective than mere words which is all that we are getting at the moment.
We happen to be of the view that playing fields are about more than just competitive sport. Young people in particular need space to 'hang out' and to develop their own games, connections and inter-personal skills. Human beings are naturally relaxed when in green and open surroundings and such places benefit the environment and the people in them in a 'win-win' situation. (I know of a renowned botanist that became interested in plants by looking at the grass species and the weeds in the less frequently used parts of the cricket outfield where he was fielding.) In addition to sport provision, these are creative spaces we are talking about here. So while we at Agrostis try to provide the highest standard of sports facility, we're also fully mindful of the wider purposes of the spaces we create.
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