Stoke-on-trent sport and physical activity strategy 2009-2016

• promote the concept of multi pitch sites;• support the Building Schools for the Future Programme• to promote increased community access to school sites• develop sites suitable to implement and develop futsal• identify the facility needs of new and existing FA Community Clubs, and toprioritise investment to these, and also to clubs working towards the FACommunity Club status.47. The key sports development priorities emerging from the FA Strategy are:• to increase the number of multi-pitch sites ideally with mini, junior andsenior pitch sizes which can be a focus for clubs with a number of teams;• provide support to enable more clubs to achieve Charter Standard;• to increase the number of mini and junior pitches across the City, onoccasion at the expense of senior pitches.The supply of grass pitches48. There are currently 46 sites with secure community use. The total playingfield area meets the needs of <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent residents for football, but thereare some serious issues to address including; the distribution of pitches, thelack of multi-pitch sites, the quality of pitches and the lack of changing.49. Of the pitches with secure community use which are available for football, allexcept 4 are provided by the City Council. These are provided directly or aspart of a legally-binding agreement with a school (often linked to externalgrant aid). The following table summarises the position.AgegroupPitchsizeHectares -Max size withsafetymarginsCurrentnumber ofsecurecommunity usepitchesNo. pitchesprovided by<strong>Stoke</strong>-on-TrentCity CouncilU10 Mini 0.3 18 All10-15 Junior 0.5 21 All16+ Senior 1.2 65 6150. The following maps show the distribution of football pitches across the City.Figure 5 shows all sites with secure community use, and Figures 6, 7 and 8break down this information by pitch size (senior,junior and mini).Nortoft Partnerships Ltd <strong>Stoke</strong>-on-Trent Page | 283Sport & Physical Activity Strategy 2009-2016October 2009