Sports & Open Spaces

In Leeds (as in many UK cities) the inner urban areas had been severely damaged by the ignorant planning policies of the 1960's, which demolished many of the existing buildings, widened roads, disrupted communities and destroyed many of the small to medium size enterprises (SMEs) which depended on historically low rents and a local customer base. Kirkstall did not escape this treatment, although it suffered far less (for example) than Hunslet and South Leeds. Instead of working and relaxing where they lived, people were obliged to travel, and to suffer other people who must also travel past their homes.

The inner city has also been damaged by Green Belt policies, which, by restricting development in the outer suburbs, have instead been responsible for the loss of much of our urban open space. In Leeds the position has become very serious, to the extent that the majority of inner city residents have little opportunity to participate in sport and physical recreation, because, quite simply, there is hardly anywhere left to play.

Until quite recently, professional planners have been reluctant to address the problem of urban open space. On 3rd February 1993, for example, planning officers submitted a report to the Leeds City Council UDP Working Party (who were preparing the Leeds Unitary Development Plan) suggesting that Leeds achieved 75% of the NPFA "6 acre standard" for playing pitch provision. If it were true this would have been an astonishing achievement, but sadly the data were completely worthless. The figures had been artificially inflated, among other things, by the inclusion of private golf courses in the Leeds Green Belt, as though these were inner city soccer pitches available to disadvantaged kids. The true figure is about one third of the stated amount: one of the worst in the UK. As a result, the Leeds UDP was drafted on the basis of completely erroneous information.

The accurate figures tell a very different story. Sports Council data shows Leeds coming 23rd out of 26 local authorities in the Yorkshire and Humberside region in terms of playing pitch provision per head of population. Almost all of these pitches are located towards the periphery of the city, so that inner-city residents have scarcely anywhere to play. Provision for female and ethnic minority sports is almost non-existent.

Click here to download a summary spreadsheet showing our current best estimate of the true state of Leeds open space provision. Detailed estimates are also available for the individual Leeds City Council wards.

The real difficulty is that inner city land values have risen to the point where it is almost impossible for any organisation to provide additional open space. Meanwhile, land continues to leak away from the few remaining sites. The huge capital gains available following a change of use are a constant temptation to public and private sectors alike. Encroachments are often justified by the promise of additional jobs, although we show in the employment section that such promises are largely illusory.

A number of accounting devices have been employed to hide the scale of this intractable problem. Sometimes pitch provision is related to the number of teams - a self-fulfilling prophecy, since those areas with no provision have very few teams, and so are unable to justify any improvement. Conversely, areas in the outer suburbs with a healthy level of sporting activity are identified for further enhancements, because these areas reveal the true level of the latent demand. Confusion may also be engendered by quoting the gross area of playing facilities, instead of the net area of usable land. The NPFA standard is defined in terms of net playable area, plus a small allowance for pitch movement to equalise wear. Recreational land often has an irregular outline and a detailed survey of Leeds grass cutting contracts showed that net areas were typically only 40% of the gross totals. A further method of concealing the problem is to consider only the walking distance to reach a particular area of open space, without considering the number of people who will have to share it. Some of these may travel from outside the study area. All of these smokescreen techniques can be found in the Leeds UDP. The only fair approach is to consider open space provision per head of population, and relate this to travelling distance, city wide.

The overall effects of the Leeds Development Corporation on playing pitch provision in the Kirkstall Valley UDA are shown in the following table:

LDC achieved a 66% reduction in playing area, in the region of greatest need. Not only does this represent a significant loss of playing pitches in the Kirkstall Valley, it is a significant proportion of ALL the playing pitches in the surrounding area, serving a population in parts of Armley, Bramley, Headingley, Kirkstall and University wards of at least 50,000 people.