In November and December 2013, over 150 Australian local government authorities (authorities) responded to our survey to identify their main challenges with sportsfields. This revealed that sports field planners and managers top three challenges are providing a sufficient number of fields to meet demand, providing quality surfaces given increased use, and meeting unrealistic expectations. These three challenges are connected.
Sports field managers and planners would like to see an adequate number of good quality sportsfields that meet their community’s expectations and fit with available resources.
This report identifies what authorities are doing to plan and manage sportsfields. This report incorporates survey responses from over 2,700 park users, as well as over ninety authorities’ interview responses and operational data1.
We find that there is an undersupply of sportsfields, especially in the more densely populated and well-established urban areas. As population density increases, this undersupply is likely to increase and sports field planners will need to be more innovative in finding solutions.
We explore three avenues to provide the quantity and quality of sportsfields that communities expect, within available resources.
- Upgrading facilities
- Re-shaping existing resources
- Unlocking third party resources