53,800 more adults playing sport in London

The progress in the region has contributed to an encouraging picture across the country, with 6.93 million adults now playing regular sport.

Key findings from Sport England’s Active People Survey 3 (APS3) for London include:

• 200,900 adults in London contribute at least one hour a week to volunteering in sport
• 1.529 million adults in London are members of a club where they do sport
• Over 1.174 million adults in London have received tuition to improve their sporting performance in the past 12 months
• 801,900 adults in the region have taken part in competitive sport during the past 12 months.

Nationally, Sport England is now 115,000 closer to its legacy target to get one million people playing more sport by 2012/13. The encouraging picture comes despite a reduction in the overall spend on sport and recreation during this challenging economic period. Sports with a higher cost of participation, such as golf, sailing and snowsport, do however appear to be facing challenges in retaining participants. Other indicators also suggest that many people are opting to do free leisure activities or switching from formal settings to informal participation such as pay & play activities.

Other findings from APS3 show that:

• Individual sports are growing at a faster rate than team sports
• The number of men playing sport three times a week has risen by 176,000 to 4.203 million
• Regular participation among non-white adults has increased by 98,800 to 713,800.

The figures cover the first six months of a four-year funding period in which Sport England will invest up to £880 million of Exchequer and National Lottery funding in community sport, with almost half a billion pounds going to 46 sports’ national governing bodies. The sports have been set individual targets to increase participation over the four years, with the latest sport-by-sport figures also published on the Sport England website.

Six sports are already meeting their growth targets for year one, just six months into the funding period. In addition to cycling and athletics, which have delivered a combined increase of over 240,000 weekly participants, the other sports are:

• Boxing, an increasingly high-profile sport, which is showing increases in participation in both recreational and organised competitive boxing
• Table tennis, which is showing strong growth among 16- to 34-year-olds and informal participants
• Canoeing, which appears to have benefitted from a larger number of people taking domestic canoeing or kayaking holidays this summer
• Netball, which is building on the success of the Back to Netball programme by developing more opportunities for people who want to play the game in a more recreational/pay & play setting.

Tennis, which has seen significant increases in participation in the three months since Andy Murray’s strong performance at Wimbledon, is also on course to achieve its year one growth target.

The Mayor's Commissioner for Sport, Kate Hoey, said:

"It is encouraging to see that participation rates in London are now headed in the right direction. It is a clear indication that the new partnership approach in London involving the Mayor, Sport England, local authorities, sports governing bodies and the community is starting to make a difference across the capital.

“There is, of course, still a huge amount to do if we are to secure a genuine grass-roots legacy from London 2012. Far too many people still do not have the opportunity or the inclination to get active. With this in mind, we will continue to do all that we can to build on today's positive news and further drive up participation across London in the months and years ahead.”

Find more information on the Active People survey by clicking here.