Maintenance is scheduled to take place on Sunday 2nd April which may result in the loss of some system functionality. Please avoid critical planned work on the platform on this date.
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We use essential cookies to give you the best online experience. Without them, this service will not work.
We also use non-essential cookies to analyse site usage to continually improve the services we provide you with.
Full details of cookies collected, and the functionality to change your cookie preferences at any time can be accessed by clicking "Cookies Policy" in the page footer.
Cookie Preferences
What are cookies and similar technologies?
A cookie is a small text file that is downloaded onto ‘terminal equipment’, a user’s device when the user accesses a website. Examples include a computer, apps on smartphones, tablets, smart TVs. It allows the website to recognise that user’s device and store some information about the user’s preferences or past actions. Functions usually performed by a cookie can be achieved by other means, a similar technology. The same rules also apply if you use any other type of technology to store or gain access to information on someone’s device, for example, using certain characteristics to identify devices so that visits to a website can be analysed.
To enable you to use Active Places Power, the service puts 'cookies' on to your computer.
These cookies are used to:
Help us understand how you use the service, so we can make improvements
Remember what notifications you have seen so that you're not shown them more than once
Temporarily store the information you enter
Essential Cookies
Some cookies are needed to support essential elements of Active Places Power and enable you to use the website as intended. For example, essential cookies enable registered users to log in and access information shared with them. They also allow you to download report results.
These cookies need to be always on:
Cookie Name
Expires
Purpose
newsBannerDismissed
Session
Prevents the news banner from re-appearing when closed
cookiePopupDismissed
6 months
Prevents the cookie preferences window from re-appearing after your preferences have been set
nonEssentialCookiesAccepted
6 months
Indicates the user’s preference regarding non-essential cookies
_RequestVerificationToken
Session
Anti-forgery token, helps to ensure data is submitted securely
session-key
Session
Authenticates a user as logged on
fileDownload
< 5 minutes
Used while a report is being downloaded. Removed when the download completes
Non-essential Cookies
We are continually working on improving the services we provide you with. To support this work, we need to understand how users navigate through, and use our pages and services.
The following cookies, whilst not essential to the running of the website, are needed for Google Analytics to provide us with statistics on how you use our platform, so we can improve it based on user experiences. These cookies collect information about:
Technical problems preventing you from using the service
The pages you visit - how long you spend on each page
How you got to the service
What you click on while you are using the service
Cookie Name
Expires
Purpose
_ga
365 days
Used to distinguish users
_gid
24 hours
Used to distinguish users
_gat
1 minute
Used to throttle request rate. If Google Analytics is deployed via Google Tag Manager, this cookie will be named: _gat_<property-id>
When was Active Places created and for what reason?
Active Places is essentially the brand name for a sports facility database. The national database was launched in 2004 and currently holds data on over 157,000 facilities located at over 39,000 sites for 15 different facility types (approximately 80% of where formal sport takes place), with each record being checked on an annual basis. (Counts accurate as of December 2019)
The original business case for Active Places came from the 2002 Cabinet Office publication Game Plan. This recommended setting up a facilities database to help ensure that facility provision is planned at the national and local level, and investment is going in the right areas and not leading to duplication of provision.
Sport England was given the responsibility to establish the database. Since 2004, the data has primarily been used to provide information on where to play sport to consumers and also deliver a number of services to assist local authorities and other facility providers in the strategic planning of sports facilities. The key website built upon the database is a Business to Business, password protected website www.activeplacespower.comdesigned for Local Authorities, National Governing Bodies of Sport (NGB) and other partners to help them plan more strategically sports facility provision.
In addition to the above Sport England websites, active places data is accessible as open data (https://www.activeplacespower.com/opendata) and is used by organisations including: Football Foundation and Football Association, Active Parternships e.g. Get Active London, and NHS Choices.