The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the value communities place on leisure and park services and being active. Councils were able to connect with communities in new and innovative and increasingly virtual ways, adapting services to meet needs during national lockdowns and beyond. Sport and leisure play a positive role in promoting the health and well-being of people and their communities, with local councils continuing to work hard to provide these services despite financial impacts from loss of income due to facility closures during the pandemic and the impacts from increasing energy bills and the cost of living crisis. Councils' role can include, but is not limited to, refurbishing and building sports facilities, promoting the benefits of participation, connecting physical activity across wider council agendas such as planning, active environments, co-location and integration with health services and carbon reduction.
Councils have a key role to play – they are the biggest funders, spending £1.4bn a year running public sport, leisure, parks services and green spaces, playgrounds and community halls. They are also place shapers and have a convening and supporting role in setting the context in which physical activity can flourish such as through active travel and environments, integrating with NHS, social care and public health. Sport and leisure are discretionary, but councils invest because they see the value to local people.
Councils are in a unique position to work with their local communities to develop and adapt spaces in a way that increases physical and mental health and wellbeing whilst also creating great places to live, work and play. Many councils in consultation with communities are reassessing current sport and leisure provision to create a more sustainable future, this is increasingly seeing traditional leisure services transition to being focused on active wellbeing services – better integrated with health services. For example East Riding of Yorkshire Council has developed a partnership and IT system between local GPs and leisure centres to deliver social prescribing locally. GPs can refer patients, through a council-designed IT system, onto schemes to increase exercise and tackle obesity. The improved health outcomes resulting from these efforts have saved an estimated £2.5 million for the NHS, demonstrating how social prescribing and leisure services can contribute to reducing pressure on acute services.
Three quarters of grassroots sports clubs depend on affordable public leisure facilities to provide opportunities to be active, without them they would not survive. They are important because community sport and physical activity makes a significant contribution to the economy and society. In 2017/18 the combined social and economic value of participating and volunteering in community sport and physical activity in England was £85.5 billion. Of this amount almost £72 billion of social value (i.e. positive impact on communities) was created through improved health and mental wellbeing, improved educational attainment and increased earnings, reduced crime and stronger communities.
Councils also have a role to play in working with Locally Trusted Organisations (LTOs) otherwise known as hyper local community groups who are working in the most deprived areas with the objective to increase activity levels in children and young people and improve their life chances. The under-representation of low-income young people in the traditional sports system such as clubs is not due to personal choice but rather, a structural inadequacy in the sports system which results in the exclusion of low-income young people. Traditional sports provision is less accessible to low-income families because of geography and sports clubs and gyms are costly and tend to market themselves to people in their own image. In addition, young people tend to prefer sociable sports which often require an organisers, kit, indoor space or marked up outdoor space. In other words, sociable sports need organisation and resources which the sports system does not supply.
Councils provide affordable sport and leisure facilities. Taking this even further, Birmingham City Council has integrated LTOs through its holiday programme, Bring it on Brum. This has had hugely positive outcomes. The holiday clubs provide healthy food and use sporting activity to make an impact on food insecurity; encourage healthy eating habits and positive behaviour. Research from Northumbria University confirmed that the Social Return on Investment (SRoI) for the health improvements associated with the Bring It On Brum! programme were £479.28 per child. For every child deterred from participating in antisocial behaviour and associated crime, they valued an approximate investment return of £928.40.