Sport England believes that being active should be an intrinsic part of everyone’s life pattern.  The master planning of major new housing and mixed use development schemes has a vital role in  providing easy access to a choice of opportunities for sport and physical activity, making new communities more active and healthy.  Active Design is aimed at urban designers, master planners and the architects of our new communities

Active Design is an innovative set of design guidelines to promote opportunities for sport and physical activity in the design and layout of development.

The guidance promotes sport and activity through  three key Active Design principles of - improving accessibility, enhancing amenity and increasing awareness. Accessibility Improving accessibility refers to the provision of easy, safe and convenient access to a choice of opportunities for participating in sport, active travel and physical activity for the whole community. Amenity Enhancing amenity involves the promotion of environmental quality in the design and layout of new sports and recreational facilities, the links to them and their relationship to other development and the wider public realm. Awareness Increasing awareness highlights the need for increased prominence and legibility of sports and recreation facilities and opportunities for exercise through the layout of the development. To view Active Design, click the document on the left.

These three key elements  have been developed into a criteria based approach to be used at the master planning stage of major developments to help create environments that maximise opportunities for participation in sport and physical activity.

The criteria can be used both as a guide during the planning process, or as a critic for developments that have already been designed.

To get a copy of the Active Design criteria, click here.
To download a copy of the Active Design martix, click here.

Archive
Stakeholder Event Report (session one)  - May 2006 - click here
Stakeholder Event Report (session two) - October 2006 - click here
Active Design phase one - September 2005 - click here

Active Design has been produced in partnership with David Lock Associates, specialists in town planning and urban design.

If you would like to know more about the project, please contact, planningforsport@sportengland.org.