Sports Infrastructures: The Overlooked Demands and Barriers for Ethnic Minorities
Imagine waking up on a Saturday morning, hoping to enjoy a walk in a nearby park. Perhaps your child comes home from school, excitedly asking to go for a swim, or you wish to start your day with a morning exercise session. Maybe your local GP has recommended joining exercise classes to boost your health. What all these scenarios share is a common reliance on sport and physical activity (PA), which interlace more deeply with daily life than many realise. Yet, for ethnic minorities, engaging in these activities can be fraught with unique and significant challenges.
For instance, imagine you live 20 minutes’ drive from a decent park—a location suitable for a brisk walk. Despite your desire to go, the thought of dealing with traffic and finding parking leads you to postpone it, thinking, “Maybe next week.” Your child wants to attend a swimming session, so you take the bus, juggling bags of swimming gear, as there’s no nearby pool. After an enjoyable lesson, the coach suggests weekly sessions, but committing to these would mean leaving work early every week—a challenging prospect. Running in the neighbourhood might seem like an option, but poor weather and a lack of safety make it unappealing. Your GP’s suggestion to join exercise classes is promising, but as an ethnic minority woman, joining mixed-gender classes feelsinappropriate. Although the leisure centre offers women-only sessions, they’re often scheduled during off-peak hours, which would disrupt your workday.
This is the gap between the ideal world and the real world, particularly when the practical and cultural barriers are considered. Some barriers, like proximity, are difficult to overcome; it’s unrealistic to build leisure centres on every corner. However, other obstacles—those related to cultural understanding and flexibility in scheduling—might be more possible with intentional design.
These observations are not hypothetical. They represent the real experiences of ethnic minorities living in Birmingham. Over the past two years, I have had the privilege of visiting and exploring a wide array of sports infrastructures—parks, leisure centres, gyms, and studios—throughout Birmingham. Funded by a British Academy project and in collaboration with the Birmingham Race Impact Group, this research involved engaging with facility managers and listening to feedback from participants. The findings reveal a lack of investment in Birmingham’s sports and leisure infrastructure, which has gone largely unaddressed for decades. Birmingham’s sport and PA participation rates lag behind national averages, making improvement urgent.
These resources are limited, even before considering the nuanced needs of ethnic minorities—such as preferences for specific activities like Kabaddi, seasonal engagement patterns (e.g., during Ramadan), or culturally sensitive options like women-only environments. This research is ongoing, dedicated to exploring these complexities and working towards a more inclusive approach to sports and physical activity in urban spaces.
The Sports Summit draft Consultation Paper for Sport, (click here to read) would welcome your views and comments.
Please send your feedback to info@wearebrig.co.uk.
