Sport England Update

 

Cycling and athletics lead the way in delivering sporting legacy

 

The number of adults in England who play sport at least three times a week has reached 6.93 million, continuing the positive trend of the past four years.

 

Sport England’s Active People Survey 3 shows we are now 115,000 closer to our legacy goal of getting one million people playing more sport by 2012/13. The encouraging news comes despite a fall in the amount of money people are spending on sport and recreation during these challenging economic times.

 

Key findings from the research include:

• The number of men playing sport three times a week has risen by 176,000 to 4.203 million
• Regular participation among non-white adults has increased by 98,800 to 713,800
• Cycling and athletics have delivered a combined increase of over 240,000 weekly participants.

"We are delighted that cycling is proving so popular and we welcome all newcomers to our sport,” said Ian Drake, British Cycling’s Chief Executive.

 

Important to getting more people on their bikes has been the Skyride initiative, launched in partnership with BSkyB and Sport England last summer, which attracted over 100,000 people to mass participation cycling events across Britain."

 

The once-a-week participation figures for all individual funded sports can be found on our website.  Half a dozen sports are already meeting their growth targets for year one, just six months into the new funding period. In addition to cycling and athletics, the other sports are:

• Boxing
• Table tennis
• Canoeing
• Netball.

There is some concern around participation among disabled people and women. The number of adults with a limiting disability doing regular sport has decreased by 42,800 to 386,700 and regular participation among women has fallen by 61,000 to 2.727 million.

Measures taken to tackle this issue include Sport England’s £10 million National Lottery funding round to encourage ‘Active Women’, and our work with the Women’s Sport and Fitness Foundation to support governing bodies in increasing sporting opportunities for women.

 

“This is an encouraging set of results,” said Richard Lewis, Sport England’s Chair. “It’s clear we’re making progress both in getting the right sporting opportunities in place, and in changing people’s sporting behaviours.

 

“Six months into a four-year funding period, we’re delighted that sports such as athletics and cycling are already delivering substantial growth. However, the figures clearly show we face challenges on participation among women and disabled people, and Sport England is committed to tackling these, as demonstrated by our allocation of £10m to projects specifically focused on women's sport."

 

The number of adults doing athletics at least once a week is up by 127,600.

 

Key Facts

 

• 635,000 more people are playing sport regularly than in 2005
• We spend £2.46 million on the survey
• That's about 1% of our annual investment in sport
• 193,000 people are interviewed each year.

   

  Fact Sheets
   

• Overall sports participation
• Individual sport, once per week participation

   

  To find out more about the survey results, you can read the two fact sheets linked to this story.

  ---

   

  Sports England strengthens its senior team

   

  Sport England has begun the new year with the appointment of Rona Chester as Chief Operations Officer (COO).
  
  Rona will start on 1 March and joins us from the Law Society where she is currently Group Finance Director in charge of all financial and governance matters. 

  
  Find out more»

   

  ---

  Champions of grassroots sport recognised in New Year honours list

   

  The New Year Honours list recognised the contributions several sporting heroes have made to their local communities. Andy Wood, Mavis Bent, Eve Loeffler and Dudley Fletcher are just some of the individuals whose hard work and commitment to grassroots sport has made a huge difference to the lives of those around them.

   

  Find out more»