THE condition of outdoor sports facilities, including children's play areas, run by Darlington Borough Council have been described as poor by the Audit Commission.

An independent report into the council's sport and recreation division said that the facilities were lacking but that, overall, people were satisfied with the sport services provided by the council.

The report stated that "the condition of some outdoor sports facilities, such as the tennis courts and a number of the children's play areas, is poor".

The commission's inspection team made a number of recommendations following an investigation into the facilities and recommended that it devised a sports and recreation strategy by the end of the year.

This is to ensure that all local people could have access to the widest possible range of activities. It also recommended that a review of pricing policies should be treated as high priority in order to encourage groups, such as the socially excluded, young and elderly people to use the service,

Pat Thynne, commissioning inspector, northern region, said: "The council is clearly committed to improving the service and is making sustained financial commitment to it.

"Service weaknesses have been analysed in consultation with residents and are already being addressed.

"However, the council does not yet have a sports and recreation strategy to guide the future delivery of the service, and more work is needed to find out if the service meets the needs of local people."

Inspectors advised that services should be more consistently promoted and clear targets to increase customer numbers should be developed.

The commission awarded the service two stars and said it had a broad range of accessible indoor and outdoor sports and children's play opportunities and that satisfaction with the sports service is high.

It identified key strengths and found that the Dolphin Centre, Stressholme golf course and the outdoor sports facilities at Eastbourne Sports Complex were good.

It also concluded that a variety of positive initiatives were in place to address issues such as reducing crime and disorder.

A council spokesman said: "Both our cultural strategy and our sports and recreation strategy have been through the scrutiny process and they will be implemented by the end of the year.

"The inspectors saw the link between these strategies into the Tees Valley Cultural Strategy as a strength for improvement and future planning."