This was my main takeaway from a new report by the Public Accounts Committee of MPs from Britain’s House of Commons, entitled Grassroots participation in sport and physical activity.

I found much of the report itself both a bit woolly and a bit beside the point.

However, there is no getting away from the dire message conveyed by some of the statistics brought to light as part of the Committee’s investigations.

These occur mainly in written evidence submitted to the Committee; (always, always peruse the written evidence sent in to Select Committee inquiries).

Statistic number one, contained in an outstanding submission by the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA), governing body of tennis in Britain: "Currently 45 per cent of park courts are categorised as being in poor, very poor or unplayable condition".

Moreover, "critically, half of unplayable venues are in the most socially deprived areas of the country".

Statistic number two, from Swim England, the aquatics governing body, "the number of pools in England is in decline".

Furthermore, mind-blowingly: "Based on current pool build trends, the number of available pools could decrease by more than 40 per cent by the end of the decade, a loss of almost 2,000 pools."

But underinvestment in public infrastructure - very much a British disease, unfortunately - is far from the only issue confronting grassroots sports aficionados.

Operating costs are very much on the rise: the same Swim England submission cites figures from ukactive showing that energy bills for swimming pools and leisure facilities have increased from £500 million ($600 million/€565 million) in 2019 to £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion/€1.35 billion) in 2022.

And local authority budgets, as always in recent times, are under severe pressure: the District Councils Network is said to have told the Committee that "70 per cent of councils were considering scaling back their leisure services amid financial pressures".

What then can be done to stave off what has the makings of an impending disaster for a sector that, by common consent, is key to health and mental wellbeing in this densely-populated island nation?

According to the report, "When pressed on how it will work with the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities to tackle the challenge of ageing public facilities, the Department [for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport] told us it 'could not point [us] directly to an actual strategy on development of leisure facilities' and that decisions on investment were ultimately for local authorities."

No answers there then, seemingly.

To its considerable credit, there are, though, some pretty compelling suggestions in the written evidence from the LTA, which has obviously thought about this a lot.

The tennis body believes that "delivery of genuine cross-Governmental working is critical" and suggests this could be realised through "introduction of a cross-departmental taskforce on sport, physical activity and wellbeing, driven by the centre of Government".

Well, hear, hear! And in the probable absence of any initiative along these lines by the beleaguered current Government, it is a policy commitment that Labour and other political parties should make as a matter of priority ahead of the next general election.

Modernising a whole country’s grassroots sports facilities in economically-straitened times is not a simple business; a lot of money could be wasted if it is not done intelligently.

By way of a small, illustrative anecdote, the village where I live for years had a couple of tennis courts that had fallen into poor repair; but this was because there was little local demand to use them.

Eventually, they were replaced by a small, but very well-built skateboard park.

Not my idea of fun, admittedly - but the new facility is proving extremely popular.

Time marches on, and it is not just a question of replacing like with like - or shouldn’t be.

I believe representatives of what seems to be a relatively thriving private leisure sector - even if they are as much prey to the current inflation as everyone else - should also be involved in the initial policy-setting process.

Vital, cost-saving public health benefits will prove elusive if low-income groups are increasingly excluded from grassroots sport, and there is a need for good ideas on how to prevent this from happening at acceptable cost, wherever these ideas might spring from.

Currently, there is a real danger of the relatively poor being forced to cut back on leisure pursuits such as organised physical activity as part of the struggle to make ends meet: the LTA submission cites a London Sport finding to the effect that "eight in 10 lower-income families are already being less active as a result of financial constraints".

The LTA document also urges adoption of various what seem to me to be sensible specific measures, some of them short-term, some more permanent.

These include: reduction to 5 per cent of value-added tax (VAT) on energy bills for community sports facilities; removal of VAT on sports equipment; removal of business rates for community sports facilities; and introduction of a National Curriculum requirement for a minimum number of hours of sport and physical activity.

The quality of sporting life enjoyed by the next generation of Britons - and everything that flows from this - will be largely determined by actions taken (or not taken) in the next few years.

Let’s not mess it up.