LISTEN: The Cool Down - The future of States Sports Facilities

Wednesday 24 January 2024

States charging schools to use publicly owned sports facilities continues to create a barrier to children being more active as the offering narrows and budgets are squeezed.

One of the key recommendations from a Guernsey Sports Commission review of facilities in 2021 was to end the charging during the school day.

It is an idea that still sits with Education, Sport & Culture.

That has combined with delays to decisions on whether to fund some of the Commission’s work in secondary schools, which has led to it being on hold since the summer.

“You still have the situation currently that if schools want to hire Footes Lane, for example, to run an athletics competition, they have to pay for it,” said the Commission's director of communications Nicky Will.

“Schools budgets are very squeezed, that's one of the challenges that remains ongoing.”

Funding for secondary school Active8 initiatives finished in the summer.

“We were facilitating the broadening the PE curriculum for secondary school pupils by taking them off site, so being able to go and experience things like paddle tennis, stand up paddleboarding, climbing,” she said.

“But of course, we were paying to hire the facilities so that the young people could use them. That part of the budget is still part of Active8. We're hoping to have some good news in the next few days, but at the moment, that's on hold. 

“Secondary schools will tell you right now that they are still delivering the PE curriculum, but the breadth of it has contracted quite a bit. If they are looking to hire any other facilities outside of that, it's proving very challenging.”

They have to pay to use Beau Sejour or the hockey pitch at Footes Lane.

The charging policy impacts on other areas of the Commission’s work, like the On Your Marks holiday programme it runs in the school holidays.

That has more than doubled in terms of numbers of children attending over five years, up to around 100, and they are also staying to try things out for longer.

The Commission keeps the charges for that as low as possible and it sells out within a day.

Last year, a Social Investment Fund grant of around £37,000 helped cover the costs and, even with a 50% discount,  £12,500 of that was going back to pay the States for hiring the facilities.

It is a scheme that caters for every child, whatever their background, with things like mini buses running to pick up those that might not have transport to get there.

Education's charging policy means that the scheme runs at a loss.

The Commission has also been pressing for a centralised booking system for States sports facilities to help ensure maximum use by the community.

Currently it is split between Education and Beau Sejour.

While it had also been pressing to make sure the right facility was built at the proposed Les Ozouets post-16 campus.

There had been plans for a new sports hall, but they have been put on ice as the States debates a phased approach to the development instead.

In the meantime, a review will look at whether Beau Sejour could provide a solution.

Netball, basketball and volleyball are all in need of a more suitable space than is currently provided at Beau Sejour and St Sampsons High.