A survey carried out by the Sport and Recreation Alliance to capture the opinion of sports clubs in the aftermath of the Games says that nine in 10 (89%) clubs reported no change in the number of people with disabilities joining their club.
The results came from the Alliance’s snapshot legacy survey, which gathered the responses of 475 respondents and was weighted to represent the 150,000 sports clubs across the UK.
The results also showed that 86% of sports clubs have noticed no change in the number of enquiries received from disabled people wanting to take part and that 96% have noticed no change in disabled people volunteering at their clubs.
Sports clubs were also asked how they were set up to provide for disabled people, with only half (49%) saying that they had suitable facilities, two thirds saying that they did not have suitably trained staff (64%) and three in five (61%) saying they lacked the appropriate equipment.
Andy Reed, chair of the Sport and Recreation Alliance said:
“We are pleased that the release of our research figures has caused a healthy debate in the media and on our social media platforms this weekend with support of our partners at the British Paralympic Association (BPA) and English Federation of Disability Sport (EFDS).
"Quite rightly our partners highlighted the great success of the Paralympic Games in generating massive interest. As the EFDS point out in their response, eight out of ten disabled people were considering taking part in sport.
"The BPA response was similar. There has been a 200% increase in enquiries and we certainly think this is significant. We also recognise that for many people with a disability they will access specific sports and disabled sports clubs. This is great.
"But we also know with around 10 million disabled people in this country and these being only half as likely to access sport as others, our mainstream sports clubs run by volunteers up and down the country will have to be open and accessible to potential disabled athletes to grow participation rates significantly.
“We all need to do our bit to create a welcoming environment for disabled people in sport and our survey was a wakeup call to remind us we all need to work hard to create a participation legacy from 2012.”
To find out more about Andy's reaction to this weekend's disability sport debate in the media, read his blog.
For media enquiries, contact Libby Jellie on 020 7976 3933.
