As described in the most recent post on the Sports Think Tank website, public facilities have suffered from cuts in local authorities' subsidies and spending. With last week's warning from the Local Government Association of deeper cuts over the next two years, as councils struggle to find another £20 billion, the impact of austerity on grassroots sport and physical activity raises wider questions concerning the funding of local sports pitches and facilities and, in a wider context, the future of finances for sport provision.

The example of football is an illustrative case in point. Minister for Sport Helen Grant recently confirmed she is investigating the fees councils charge for football pitches amid warnings that the sport is steadily becoming a game for children with rich parents. Ms Grant has raised the issue with the FA and has said a new ownership model for local sports facilities "may need to be looked at". One policy proposal is for county football associations to work more closely with local authorities in managing sports projects but Helen Grant has said that may be "too ad hoc". Labour MP for Bolton North East, David Crausby has also warned of a long-term decline in participation as teams struggle to pay for pitches. He said many parents cannot afford fees for their children to play on pitches, let alone boots and travel, and so many poorer children are being denied the chance to play. The same affliction affects people all over the country. Journalist and commentator Memphis Barker has drawn attention to the same problem in Peckham's Burgess Park in South London, where the football pitch costs £162 to hire for a single hour. Mr. Crausby said he did not blame local authorities, who have had to absorb 40% cuts and so charge higher fees for football facilities. But he derided the FA for "failing the grassroots game" in the wake of a £1.6m funding cut from Sport England, which was made in response to a decline in participation. Leading a debate on grassroots football in Westminster Hall, he cited: "Poor pitches, weeks of play lost to bad weather, no changing facilities, no showers, increasing pitch fees, poor families priced out and other families deterred by the shoddy conditions." It's therefore hardly surprising that participation is in decline. There are currently 1.84 million people playing football on a regular basis, according to Sport England, a fall of 100,000 since April last year. In 2006 there were more than two million people playing the game. Mr. Crausby adds, "The FA have called the reduction in funding disappointing. Well frankly the FA should be more than disappointed. They should feel ashamed because if they are failing the grassroots game then they are failing the game itself and everything they stand for."

David Crausby's petition calling on the government to make the FA "top slice" 7.5% of money from Premier League broadcasting rights, worth billions of pounds, to fund grassroots football has in excess of 30,000 signatures. This is an idea supported by Barker, who argues that the Premier League should re-direct more of their £3 billion from the sale of TV rights to the grassroots of the game. He raises the crucial point, noted in a report by Sport England, that councils are less inclined to throw money at "sport for sport's sake", and would be better lobbied to contribute towards specifically directed programmes that utilise sport as a means of tackling deprivation and making people better off in other aspects of their lives. He says, "What was once a working-class game is steadily becoming a game for children that can only be afforded by those with better-off parents. It's difficult enough to drag our kids off the couch away from the XBox and into the car in order to play proper football in the open air as it is, but if you are a child with poor parents who can't afford the fees let alone the kit and the football boots and don't have a car, then the prospect looks even bleaker and in many cases they will be denied the opportunity to play."

The reality described above brings to mind Sports Think Tank founder Andy Reed's recent commentary on sports funding, warning how grassroots sports' over-reliance on public income leaves national governing bodies in a precarious position. There are many success stories of sports programmes funded by public money, but as Andy notes, this money can be summarily removed at any time and schemes dismantled without warning, as in the example of the School Sports Partnership Programme. In the current climate of austerity and the inevitability of deeper local area cuts, the model of UK Athletics and its partnership with Sainsbury's serves as an example to other national governing bodies as a possible route to greater financial security by engaging private partners. Through the effective use of research and technology that builds up a picture of their participants as customers, information can then be used to develop more effective engagement strategies for their customers and give credibility to commercial partners when looking to secure funding. Furthermore, public funding will be better secured by socially-focused, evidence-based programmes directed towards engaging people in sport for a developmental purpose and not just aimed at arbitrary increases in participation.