Its official; half of England's local authority facility stock will be celebrating its 35th birthday in 2008-2009. The early seventies baby-boom for sports facilities hits crunch time and the plethora of flat roofs, brown and yellow tiles, circulation space dominated, staff-intensive, tired facilities that reach this milestone are steadily becoming uneconomic.

At the same time, the university sector is becoming increasingly conscious and aware of the significance of quality and the ‘wow' factor needed from sports facilities. This is inspired both by a genuine desire to raise levels of student participation in sport and physical activity and by the increasingly competitive environment, to keep up with Russell Group, 94 Group or simply local HE competitors.

Either way, both have a vested interest in reviewing how they can deliver sustainable and appropriate services to distinct markets.

Sharing facilities for performance-based sport is a long-standing habit; to name just a few: Gymnastics at LMU (Carnegie), Judo at Wolverhampton, Netball Superleague at Northumbria and Brunel, swimming at Manchester and Stirling, and a whole variety of sports at Loughborough and Bath.

This said, the number of genuine university-community joint developments is actually still quite low. Few have cracked how to marry the variable but often competing demands of the main ‘markets' that they are required to service.

Typical barriers have been (and continue to be) the part year requirements of the student market, the different pricing mechanisms frequently adopted and broadly coinciding ‘peak demand times.'

However, collaboration is made more desirable by factors such as the greater demand for pools on university campuses, the more businesslike approach of all parties, the opportunity to integrate university and community-based clubs and an acceptance that, for many, joint development (and operation) of new high quality facilities is the only practical option.

In one such venture a local authority is assessing whether, via partnership with a university operating on its patch, it can rationalise up to three ageing pools; all in varying stages of decay. By so doing it will be able to allocate both capital and ongoing revenue funding for the operation of a major new sports facility located in a community-accessible and visible position on the edge of a newly planned campus.

The quid pro quo is that the University, which has a profile in sports science and research gains facilities that reflect its academic pre-eminence, that are a major attraction for all students and will, in time, enable it to link its academic work to longitudinal impact assessment - benefiting all parties.

Much work remains, from working through the programming of wet, dry and fitness facilities, managing the integration between student and community sport and sensitively organising differential charging. Business planning must also build systematic maintenance and refurbishment into the partnership so that facilities have a genuine chance of looking presentable in 25 years time.

There is little doubt, however, that collaboration will enable both organisations to achieve a facility (and related services) of a scale and quality that neither would have developed independently while the net cost of service delivery will reduce; surely a marriage with half a chance of going the distance!