speech on sport

I attended an all boys secondary school in what is now a community first area where winter was football and rugby with the summer cricket and athletics.

It appears that as the breadth of opportunity to engage in different sports has increased participation levels have decreased.

It was a time when teenage obesity was caused by health problems as opposed to today where teenage obesity is causing health problems.

I want to discuss I detail five recommendations

The first is recommendation 5

Community sport and child poverty strategy.

Firstly can I commend Swansea Council for the number of multi game areas, football goalposts, basketball hoops, keep fit equipment  and skateboard areas made available.

The Council’s commitment to providing sports facilities for young people is an example to other local authorities across Wales.

I was fortunate enough to attend the launch of street sport in Blaenymaes last month.

For children living in community first areas the need is for sporting activities that are cost free.

I now want to discuss recommendation 8 on identifying ways to encourage girls to take part in sport.

It has been shown that the drop out rate from sport of teenage girls is much greater than boys.

I think that research is essential to find out why many teenage girls want to stop being involved in sporting activity and what can be done to encourage greater involvement in exercise.

My own expectation is that dance, Zumba and keep fit carried out in the school gym would interest more girls than outdoor activities.

We do however need to ask teenage girls in a way that will get the real reasons for lack of activity and what they would take part in.

Recommendation 9 asks for an assessment of the reduction in local government budgets on sport and leisure services and access.

As local government budgets are reduced and the increase in the cost of elderly care and children’s services continues then the pressure on non statutory services such as sport and leisure has increased.

Increasing the cost of sports facilities acts as barrier to children and younger people who are less well off and once activity stops it is very difficult to get people to start up again

I will reiterate a view I have previously expressed in that cutting back on leisure facilities and increasing their cost will lead to much higher costs for the health service in the future.

Recommendation 10 looks for opportunities to increase access to leisure facilities across Wales.

This gives me an opportunity to link two areas that I regularly raise: 3 and 4g pitches and invest to save.

I would urge the government to engage in discussions with local authorities regarding accessing invest to save to increase the number of 3 and 4 g pitches which reduce maintenance cost and are available for continual use.

The final recommendation I want to discuss is the review of free swimming.

I believe that a review of where take up is low is needed and whether it is caused by the opportunity to swim in the sea, cost of getting to the venues or whether there are other reasons.

I welcome the government’s positive response to the recommendation and I hope that we can increase activity and participation because if we do not both the economy and the health budget will suffer.