Low-intervention regulation of private sports activities in public municipal natural spaces

Covid lock down increased people interest in practising sports. Afterwards, there was a growth in outdoor sports practice. As a consequence, people and private entities started to use public natural spaces like parks and beaches for organizing sports activities and offering their services. Gyms, training groups, boxing and martial arts clubs, and many others (included groups of friends) occupy areas in parks like the old river bed in the city of Valencia. This, also allowed discovering activities people are doing and were out of the radar (slacklines, kangoo power, etc.). The sports council of Valencia decided for a low-intervention approach: observe, learn and intervene only when needed. That included volunteers to orient people in adopting Covid measures, putting in-place equipment in response to the kind of activities people were doing (e.g. kalistenia), create alternatives for aleviating crowds (e.g. healthy paths network) and finally observing the new activities, changes in trends, and others.