For everyone in Britain, this is a momentous week. After a decade of New Labour under Tony Blair, this week has seen a smooth handover to a new PM, Gordon Brown.

Already, Brown has signaled changes in style and substance, and committed himself to a new programme of change.

Before all this hits us – what has the last decade meant for our industry?

So much change – so many landmarks.

– The National Lottery has brought what we should regard as the Golden Age of support for sports andarts projects.

– We have seen the start of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly.

– The Euro arrived in Europe – though not (yet?) in the UK.

– The short-lived Department of National Heritage became the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (and some think further change is imminent).

– Regional Development Agencies have driven regeneration, with many projects in sport, parks and leisure.

– The impact of planning regimes has stopped out of town retail and leisure developments, and the Trafford Centre (1998) and Bluewater (1999) may be the last for some time.

– The English Tourist Board was replaced by the English Tourism Council, now responsible for much of the regional funding.

– There’s been a great deal of European and British legislation affecting us eg Fairness at Work, Part time Workers Directive, Working Time Directive, and of course the National Minimum Wage, now a fixture.

– Healthy Living has become a major theme of government policy, and our industry is recognized now as a vital provider of services and facilities to help achieve health targets.

In this decade, Harry Potter became a household name and phenomenon, soon to be a theme park. Diana Princess of Wales died 10 years ago but remains an icon. The Millennium Dome became a byword for profligacy and misplaced ambition but is relaunched this week as the O2 Arena.

Wembley Stadium also got bad headlines for half the decade; but in this period, several large projects in the industry were completed on time and budget, attracting, regrettably, rather less publicity.

Terrorism dominated much of the last few years, affecting every industry and certainly ours. And, this was another decade in the life of these islands afflicted by wars overseas.

The world wide web is now where people of all ages spend and book their leisure time. The media multiplied, beyond dreams and forecasts.

Britain and London won the right to stage the Olympic Games, in 2012 - an achievement also beyond dreams and forecasts and another with an incalculable impact on all of us working in sport, parks and leisure.

When we trailed this “10 Years on” feature several weeks ago, Mike McCardle of SpoRTA wrote to us at ISPAL with pertinent comments on one major change, the rise of the trust sector.

“Since its formation in 1997, with 29 founder members, SpoRTA has grown to a membership of 114 leisure trusts,” he said. “This model of leisure provision is now well placed between the in house DSO and the private operators. Over the past 10 years we have seen the demise of standalone leisure departments – subsumed into larger Directorates.”

Mike looks forward to the further development of “the Third Sector options for the provision of leisure and culture services to the community”.

What have we missed, in this short and sharp summary? Do mail us at [email protected] with your views on major changes.

Finally, some statistics…

Researching this decade, we found a new figure for numbers employed in the industry, though this total – more than 2.5millon - includes hospitality. Sport and recreation alone employs between 500,000 and 620,000. The sector continues to create one in four new jobs.

Participation has increased in a range of sports and physical activities - for example, the proportion of adults swimming regularly has gone up from just over 10 per cent to 20 per cent; cycling, from 6 per cent to 9 per cent; tennis, from 2 per cent to 5 per cent. Now, of course, Sport England is taking a strong lead in planning and driving for larger increases, across the population.

Of course, what matters is the future. Your e-zine will monitor the first days and weeks of the Brown Administration, and try to identify the key implications for sport, parks and leisure.

DO tell us what you think… [email protected]