FAQ

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What is the impact of COVID-19 on Active Places data reporting?

Active Places records are checked on an annual basis (either by the Active Places Data Validation contractor or individual facility owners and managers who have taken responsibility to self-maintain information on their own facility records).  This has traditionally provided the appropriate balance between data quality (currency, accuracy and completeness) and the effort/cost required to check over 33,000 sites at which over 135,000 facilities are located (November 2020).

However, the annual check does not provide a sufficient frequency to reflect the immediate and short term impact of the Covid-19 restrictions (such as local and national lockdowns) on facilities.  This is having a significant impact on data accuracy,  specifically to attributes such as operational status (planned, under construction, operational, temporary closed etc), access policy (free public access, pay and play, club membership etc) and opening times.

For the vast majority of Active Places records these attributes remain unchanged from pre Coivid-19 and therefore may not reflect the current status.  The exception will be where a facility is known to have permanently closed.  

Sport England are exploring options to update these attributes on a more frequent basis to reflect the impact of Covid-19.  If you are aware of any data updates, please provide them via activeplaces.data@sportengland.org.