The Death Of Community Pitches

calebwatts007
May 7, 2024
6 min read

Updated: Oct 8, 2024

How much does a kickabout cost?

Playing football at the park, or down at the local pitch with friends is a quintessential part of an active childhood for most British children. Unfortunately, this experience is moving further from reach for the general population. Community sports pitches are dwindling. Pitch-for-hire businesses are thriving. Pitches available for free use to the public have been on a decline since 2010, while 2022 saw Power League’s CEO Christian Rose, the UK’s leading pitch-for-hire company, forecast ‘record profits’ for the year.****

Pitch-for-hire companies are not the issue. They provide safe surfaces to paying customers and allow a space for (mostly) adults to compete in amateur leagues and social matches. The issue is the lack of available surfaces for the younger and poorer sections of our society. Those who cannot afford £60 to play for an hour (the going rate at Shepherd’s Bush Power League) are left without much real alternative – and this balance is unlikely to tip any time soon.

A pattern seems to be emerging. Schools and councils are building astroturf pitches on patches of land that they own and then charging for its use. Of the 49 available artificial pitches for hire within a 3 mile radius of my London childhood home – 28 are on school grounds. My secondary school - Queen’s Park Community School, has recently joined this Astro Federation. Their pitch has been built on an area of the school field previously reserved for students to use on their lunch breaks, costing around £415,000. About a third of the funding for the build came from the school and the rest came from a combination of the PTFA (Parent Teacher Friends Association) and fundraising. A regular full pitch hire for an hour will set you back £80 but registered charities can enjoy a discounted rate of £55. The expectation amongst the school’s hierarchy is that it will only take 2 years to break-even on the project – an indicator of the astute thinking behind it.

However, while it is true that the pitch is a positive for the school and therefore its students, sacrifices have had to be made. It feels microcosmic of the direction our society is heading in. The grass field that provided an invaluable outlet for myself and hundreds of students before and after me to exercise in our break-times is now a limited access cage.

Hearing that the schoolkids are not allowed free access to the school’s astroturf pitches is not a surprise.

The act of building an astroturf on school playing fields in and of itself is a desperate one. Austerity and the financial crisis that the country has been plunged into has forced our state schools into looking for alternative ways to find funding. Like so many councils and governments before them – looking to leverage the land they own into cash-flow was the option they chose. (Unlike the governments before them, rather than a quick cash-grab by selling to property developers, they can keep ownership and control of the land beyond the leveraging).

State of the art astroturf is durable but, like all things, begins to wear the more it is used. The school wants to protect its investment by ensuring it remains in good condition, which will have a direct effect on how many people want to book to play on it and, by extension, how much money they can bring in. It is clear that they, like so many others around the country, are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Providing open access to the local community, particularly for those who cannot otherwise afford to play on safe, all-weather surfaces, is so important to the mental and physical wellbeing of the population. The subsidised rates for charity use are testament to the balance that is trying to be struck. When you cannot rely on funding to re-lay and maintain the surface at your disposal, limiting those who can use it and therefore limiting the amount of use that it gets is the next best way to maintain it. Staving off its inevitable deterioration for as long as possible by making it inaccessible to the public would appear to be the only remaining option.

For those who are unaware of what an astro-turf can turn into if not maintained – try this. Search for the local free to use astroturf surface (if one exists) and have a real look over it. Notice the strips of surface that have started to come away from each other, the matted turf, the cigarette butts or discarded rubbish strewn across the pitch. If none of this applies, congratulations! You’re a part of a lucky minority.

Through a particular lens, it would be easy to say - ‘Why should there be access to sports pitches for free?’ or ‘The public wouldn’t treat it properly if they could use it for free!’

This lens is short-sighted. And wrong. Objectively.

Because the above argument, which has often been posed, comes from a psyche that refuses to register the value of something if it is not in GBP – I have some facts that will make sense to it.

It found that people in lower socio-economic groups (LSEGs) are the most likely to be inactive (33%) and the least likely to be active (54%). And with nearly a third of the adult population in England - around 12 million people - in a LSEG, that is a significant number of people who could reap huge benefits from being more active.’ *

In the UK, 17% of deaths are caused by inactivity. It is estimated that physical inactivity costs the economy £7.4 billion in premature deaths, healthcare and sickness absence. **

London saves £950 million per year in health costs due to the impact of living and working close to public green space. **

For each £1 spent by local authorities and their partners on public green space, Londoners enjoy at least £27 in value in terms of economic health benefits. **

These statistics indicate that, in financial terms, it is in the public interest to have more facilities that allow physical activity like football available for free. If anything, it could be more cost-effective than the current way of things.

In the years between 2010 and 2019, over 700 community football pitches closed for good in the UK. This information was released after the Guardian applied for the data to be released under the Freedom of Information Act. That number is only going in one direction. ***

Space for sport and exercise is being sacrificed to make councils and schools the money they need to continue to make ends meet. The budgets that councils are functioning with are clearly not enough to provide the service required – the six councils that have declared themselves effectively bankrupt since 2021 is evidence of this.

In one of these councils, Croydon (three-time bankruptee), a hero has emerged to provide some welcome aid. Rapper Stormzy and brand Adidas have recently offered a collaborative answer to the lack of space epidemic. Merky FC HQ is a purpose-built community centre in Stormzy’s local borough, boasting artificial football pitches, a state-of-the-art recording studio, multi-function room and a sports gaming hub (collab with EA Sports). Stormzy’s pledge to give back to disadvantaged young people is one he has stuck to – Merky FC HQ follows Merky Books and the Merky FC employment programme – initiatives the Merky Foundation has started with the goal of levelling the playing field between the disadvantaged, especially the young and black. Stormzy’s project will undoubtedly make a dramatic difference in many lives, young and old, in the community. But a home-town success story with a penchant for altruism should not be the only reason community pitches are getting built. As wonderful as Merky FC HQ is, it's a plaster on a gaping wound. The 11 a-side astroturf pitches and the three 7 a-side pitches will help. But a wider strategy is needed to solve the issue of accessibility to good sports facilities.

Over the promotional video for his new facility – Stormzy delivers the words:

‘The beautiful game for some, the inaccessible game for others’

It’s a line that rings uncomfortably true, and one that needs to be addressed in a serious way.

As well as offering huge benefits in terms of health and happiness – access to artificial pitches can give us even more than just that.

Access to safely maintained, all-weather sporting spaces is an investment in the dreams and aspirations of our young people. It’s a teacher of discipline and the value of exercise. It’s a medium through which to bond with peers, to form lifelong, life changing connections. It’s a shared experience, and in a time where what it means to be British seems to be in a state of flux - something to be proud of and bind us together. Do we want to put a price tag on that? Do we want to put a limit on who can share in these benefits?

In a time of cutting back and making tough decisions – we need to assess where our priorities lie.

Is it with profit? Or is it with people?