Question on Sport Facility Calculator
Public Question NO. 5
LONDON BOROUGH OF LEWISHAM
COUNCIL MEETING
26 OCTOBER 2005
Question
Sport England's on-line Sports Facility Calculator (SFC) seems to be a very useful tool designed to estimate the amount of key community sports facilities required to meet that need of the local population.
How useful does the Council believe this tool to be - and would it consider that SFC estimates are realistic estimates that we should adopt for developing community sports facilities?
Reply
The Sport England Facility Calculator (SFC) was publicly launched in September 2005 and is intended as a tool to gauge the ideal level of provision for new sports developments within Local Authority areas. The recommendations are based on national average usage - using the National Benchmarking Service, and do not include any specific local trends or data.
The SFC does not take into account any facility provision in neighbouring Boroughs which may be closer to some residents living near Borough boundaries, and it takes into account all type of provision. For example in the case of swimming pools their data includes private clubs, hydrotherapy and school pools.
Currently Lewisham falls marginally short of recommended provision with regard to pool space ( not including hydrotherapy pools). However, by 2010 when the new provision is completed at Forest Hill, Sundermead and Wavelengths the Borough will exceed the recommended figure of 2715.54 m2 by some considerable margin.
Leisure staff are currently investigating the SFC recommendations with regard to dry Leisure provision, recognising that the SFC represents an important planning tool despite the caveats outlined above.


