FAQs - Tools

When building a report there are a number of parameters that can be set.  The report queries are constructed using a combination of operator functions.

The AND operator displays a record if both the first condition AND the second condition are true.  The AND operator is used when values are set between different options.  For example:

 I want a list of:

•  - Area of Interest = National (AND)
•  - Facility Type = AGP (AND)
•  - Facility Sub Type = 3G Rubber Crumb (AND)
•  - Pitch Count => 2 (AND)
•  - Small AGP Flag ticked

This would generate a report output of only small sided 3G APGs facilities with more than 2 pitches located in England.

The OR operator displays a record if either the first condition OR the second condition is true.  The OR operator is used when multiple values within a single option.  For example:

 I want a list of:

•  - Area of Interest = Kent (AND)
•  - Facility Type = Grass Pitches (AND)
•  - Ownership = Local Authority (OR) Education (OR) Sports Club

This would generate a report output of Grass Pitches in Kent that are either owned by the Local Authority sector or the Education sector or Sports Clubs.

It should be noted that no results may be generated if certain options are used e.g. for GOLF.  Unlike most facility types Golf has sub types that do not share the same attributes (i.e. Driving ranges do not have the same attributes as par 3 or standard courses).  For example:

 I want a list of:

•  - Area of Interest = National (AND)
•  - Golf (AND)
•  - Bays = >4 (AND)
•  - Holes = >4

 This would generate a report output of no results as no single facility has both Bay and Hole attributes. 

In broad terms calculations are based upon the smallest unit definable for a facility type.  For example, the total number of Grass Pitches at a site will be based upon the number of individual pitches for all Grass Pitch sub types (of which 20 sub types currently exist ranging from Adult Football to Rounders).  Should a site have four Adult Football pitches, two Junior Football pitches and three Rounder pitches a total count of nine pitches would be calculated. 

The method for calculating counts by the number of units applies to small Artificial Grass Pitches (AGPs), Grass Pitches, Squash Courts and Tennis Courts.  Note 'full size' AGPs will only have a pitch count of 1.  See separate FAQ for more details.

All other facility counts are based upon the number of facility sub types rather than unit value.   For example, the total count of Swimming Pools at a site will be based upon the number of individual facility sub types only (of which there are five).  Should a site have one Main/General Pool, one Diving Pit and one Learner pool a total of three facilities would be calculated. 

 *Please note that between the re-launch of Active Places Power in November 2012 and a fix release in June 2013 Artificial Grass Pitches (AGPs), Grass Pitches, Squash Courts and Tennis Courts were incorrectly calculated as a count of facility type rather than a count of units.  The result being that counts for these facilities types were significantly less than normally reported by Sport England.*

The Playing Pitch Calculator can help local authorities with estimating the likely demand that may be generated for the use of playing pitches by a new population. It has been developed to assist local authorities with assessing the needs for playing pitches when developing and/or implementing a playing pitch strategy (PPS).

For more information see http://www.sportengland.org/facilities-and-planning/planning-for-sport/planning-tools-and-guidance/playing-pitch-calculator/. 

If you work for a local authority which has an up to date PPS in place or are in the process of developing one, then to access the PPC firstly register with the Active Places Power (APP) website (if you are not already registered) then email planningforsport@sportengland.org to request access. Once access is enabled the PPC will be added to your list of available reports on APP.

The “Compare Area of Interest” is an optional parameter that can be defined for the following reports:

- Detailed Report – Facilities

- Summary Report – Facilities

The “Compare Area of Interest” enables up to 15 comparator AOIs to be selected.  To facilitate the selection of AOIs they have been grouped according to the following relationships:

 - Hierarchical Relationship - The hierarchical neighbour AOIs available for selection will be those administrative authorities in ascending hierarchy from the initial AOI selected. For example: Active Partnerships, County, Region and National for a selected Local Authority.

-  Geographical Relationship  - The AOIs whose geographic boundaries adjoin that of the selected AOI. 

-  Core Cities - England’s eight largest city economies outside London.

-  Full listing - All AOIs as listed within the default AOI list enabling the user to choose their own unique combination of comparison AOIs; Region, County, Active Partnerships and Local Authority AOIs.

(Note CIPFA relationships were removed (August 2019) due to Sport England not maintaining a subscription to the data.)

Active Places Power uses one of Esri’s Network Analyst routing solvers to provide dynamic Origin to Destination (OD) routing analysis. This is achieved via the ArcGIS Server Network Analyst extension geo-processing web service. The solver type used in the Access Analysis is the OD Matrix Analysis. It performs the cost of travel in time or distance from multiple origins to multiple destinations. 

Two separate network datasets (driving model or walkingmodel) are used to compute the routing from multiple Output Area Centroids to multiple Facilities given a set of conditions. For the Drive option Ordnance Survey's Highways Network - Roads data is used whereas for the Walk option, OS Highways Network - Road is combined with the OS Highways Network - Path data. 

In the walking option motorways are avoided and all traversable roads are assigned a speed of 3 MPH. In the driving option the OS Highways road speed limits have not been used. Instead the entire OS Highways dataset has been assigned articulated speed limits determined through Sport England's Facility Planning Model (FPM). This includes for example junction delay factor of 10% (of the total Drive Time) and an additional 90 Secs (1.5 Mins) to factor in parking delays at start and end of each journey. This ensures a consistent calculation of drive times used within both Active Places Power and the Facility Planning Model.

With the Network Analyst OD Matrix solver, you can create an origin-destination travel time/distance cost matrix from multiple origins to multiple destinations. An OD cost matrix result contains the network impedance from each origin to each destination in accordance to specified cut-off criteria. 

The best network path is discovered for each origin-destination pair, and the cost (travel time or distance) is stored in the attribute table of the output lines. Even though the map shows straight lines from origins to destinations for performance reasons, the attributes of the lines store the actual traversed network route cost, not the straight-line cost. 

The user journey involves selecting an Area of Interest from the available list. The user can then choose to show population data and subsequently set the travel parameters. Parameters include choice of driving or walking and whether time or distance it to be used as a cut-off parameter. The system then submits this information to the ArcGIS Server Network Analyst solver to compute. When the process is completed the user gets notification to view the result. 

The resulting map shows the lines of connection between the origin, which are Output Area Population Weighted Centroids and the destination Facility that were reachable given the cut-off parameters. Output Area Population Weighted Centroids that were unable to reach a Facility due to the cut-off parameters are shown as red dots. 

The OD Matric calculation is an intensive process and thus the larger the Area of Interest, the more time it takes to compute the results. 

The below table defines the “operators” used to create basic calculations within the Active Places Power reports.

For example to create a detailed report of Sports Halls of the equivalent size to 5 or more badminton courts set Badminton Courts >= 5.

The Active Places Power interactive map includes a "Map Identify" tool (blue circle with "i") that returns information for a given location on the map.  To use the tool click on the Map Identify icon, which will change the mouse marker to include a question mark and display a tool tip.

Click anywhere on the map to return information.  A set of location information will be returned by default (see table below).  Other map layers must be set to display (within the left side Map Layers section) in order for the tool to return information on them.  The tool will automatically drill down through all map layers displayed on the map in addition to the default information. 

If multiple results are returned for a given data layer (i.e. Census Output Areas) zoom in to a larger scale and repeat the Map Identify action.  This will return a more specific set of results.