You’ve heard it before. Every tech start-up out there can tell you how they’ll solve the world’s problems.
You feel yourself scrambling to close the tab. Is it too late to flush the image of Mark Zuckerberg out of your head…?
Bear with us though. What we’re talking about here doesn’t involve colonies on Mars, but it’s happening now and it matters.
Inactivity is a growing crisis in the UK’s communities. It’s harming our quality of life, making us less happy, less healthy and less well-off. In order of importance!
It’s vital we drive up sports participation in local communities and give people the spaces they need. Pitchbooking has been designed specifically to make sport easier.
First, let’s look at the problem.
Inactivity: It affects everything!
According the BHF, an estimated 20 million adults (ages 19-65) in the UK are inactive. That’s around 39% of the adult population! Inactivity costs the NHS around 1.2 billion pounds a year.
Quick Q&A:
What is ‘inactivity’?
-Someone is considered physically inactive if they don’t do enough exercise over the course of a week.
How much is enough?
-The government has very helpful guidelines to let us know how much activity we need.
You don’t need to do a huge amount. The average adult needs 2 ½ hours of ‘moderate’ activity (e.g. brisk walking or cycling) or 1 ¼ hours of ‘vigorous activity’ (e.g. running or football) each week.
So, play one hard hour of football every week, and you’ll be well on your way to improving your health!
Is inactivity that bad for us?
-Yes! 1 in 6 adults in our nation, will die as a direct consequence of inactivity.
Research in the UK shows, for example, that being active makes you 35% less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease. It can also reduce the risk of early death by as much as 30%.
Anything else?
-Yep! It’s not just physical health. Active people are happier too.
Adults who exercise regularly are 20-30% less likely to suffer from depression on average and 30% more likely to feel better about themselves.
Feeling happy and good about ourselves affects everything we do.
How can Pitchbooking make a difference?
As UKActive have shown, people are more active, healthy and happy when they have access to good community spaces:
"[...] community leisure facilities are hugely valuable, even essential, not only to the physical health of the nation, but also for the positive impact they have on wider agendas such as education, crime, and general wellbeing." (‘Physical Activity – A Social Solution’, England: UKActive, 2017, p.2)
Years of local budget cuts have left councils struggling to fund local sport. In many areas, there is a shortage of good facilities.
That’s where we can make a difference.
Seamless bookings. It’s not the sexiest phrase… But easy processes let people take advantage of what is around them.
Pitchbooking has been designed to make using and managing sports pitches cheaper and easier.
Airbnb has transformed unused homes into beautiful holiday destinations all over the world. We want to see thousands of underused pitches across the UK, especially in urban areas, become places anyone can play.
As society faces up to the inactivity crisis, there are calls to revolutionise the way we think about local sports and leisure. Let’s use technology to open up the spaces in our local communities.
Playing more makes people happier and healthier. More profitable pitches mean more money for local communities. We’re already seeing that it can work.