About the census - Censo de instalaciones deportivas

1. BACKGROUND

Article 96 of Law 14/1998 of 11 June on Sport in the Basque Country establishes the mandate to draw up and update annually a census of public and private sports facilities in the Autonomous Community with common criteria to be approved by the Basque Government.

Since 2005 there has been a census of sports facilities in the Community, drawn up by the Higher Sports Council, which incorporates all public and private sports facilities for collective use, the basic territorial unit being the municipality and the basic census unit being the sports facility.

2. OBJECTIVES

In 2010, the deviation between the registered and existing installations became evident, making it clear that an update was needed to meet current requirements. For this reason, a new census of facilities was carried out, in order to meet the following objectives:

To maintain an updated database of all the sports facilities in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country, in order to evaluate their number and collect their main technical characteristics.
Establish mechanisms for the collection, updating, exchange and dissemination of information.
To carry out a statistical analysis and a study of the characteristics and evolution of the park of sports facilities in the Autonomous Community with the data obtained, which will be published.
To provide the statistics that make planning, management and investment decisions in sports facilities possible.

3. SCOPE

The field work carried out within the present assignment has been carried out throughout the territory of the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country; the initial estimate for sports facilities is 3,400, which corresponds to a 10% increase over those recorded in 2005.

The work has been structured geographically by Historical Territories, counties, municipalities, and population centres, following the codification of these territorial entities used by the Basque Institute of Statistics (EUSTAT).

As part of this process, both the verification of the facilities collected in the census carried out in 2005 and the visit and measurement of new facilities and those not detected in the previous census have been included.

A sports facility is made up of sports and complementary spaces that are located in a common area and have a dependent and homogeneous operation. The complementary spaces of the facility are directly related to the development of the sports activity. In facilities with activity areas, the complementary spaces are often the only ones built. Apart from sports and complementary spaces, sports facilities may have other services, which are called auxiliary services.

For the purposes of this census and taking into account the basic characteristics of the sports spaces, three main groups of sports spaces can be distinguished.

Conventional: corresponding to the most traditional typologies.
Unique: they have dimensions and characteristics adapted to each type. They are more specific spaces and generally have spatial requirements that make their distribution uneven over the territory.
Areas of Activity: these are not strictly sports, but are the infrastructures or natural spaces on which physical-sports activities are carried out (paths, marinas, shelters, aerodromes, etc.). The lack of definition of the limits and specific characteristics makes it difficult to size them and to collect data on them.

The conditions that the facilities had to meet in order to be included in the census were: that they were for collective use, that they were signposted and that some kind of adaptation had been built or carried out to allow physical-sports practice on a permanent basis or that it was a generally recognised place for the development of these practices.

Facilities for the use of a family unit and potential practice spaces that do not meet these requirements have been excluded from this census. Also expressly excluded from this scope are facilities that are not of a permanent nature, that is to say, temporary adaptations, and those that belong to care or hospital equipment exclusively for rehabilitation or physiotherapy. However, the latter have been recorded when they could be used by workers or other users for sports purposes, outside of medical-rehabilitation hours.

Gyms or other geriatric and day-care facilities and facilities in the vicinity of parks have also been included in this census, excluding only children's play areas.

4. LEGALITY

Article 82 of Provincial Decree 198/2015, of 9 September, establishes that the Directorate General of Information Technology, Telecommunications and Public Innovation (DGITIP) shall exercise the powers provided for therein in relation to information systems and technologies, IT and telecommunications services and infrastructures and audiovisual broadcasting services, the development of new technologies, technological infrastructures and user support, security of information systems, organisation and innovation, evaluation of public policies and quality of services, establishment of strategic lines in the field of public innovation and in the application of information and communication technologies and those others attributed by the provisions in force to the Department of the Presidency, Civil Service, Home Affairs and Justice within the DGITIP.

Therefore, the corresponding validation of the work to update the Census of Sports Facilities in Navarre has been carried out by the Information Systems Service of the Department of the Presidency, Public Service, the Interior and Justice of the Government of Navarre.