Abstract: Australia’s major cities are experiencing, significant population growth, much of which is occurring in greenfield sites at the fringes of metropolitan areas. Many recent planning policies have focused on issues of social liveability and environmental concerns in these localities. A recent report by Curtin University (Middle, Tye and Middle, 2012) found that the implementation of three recent planning policies - Liveable Neighbourhoods, Bush Forever and Water Sensitive Urban Design - whilst providing some important environmental and social benefits, had the unintended effect of significantly reducing the number of active playing fields being provided in new suburbs. This paper reports on stage one of follow up research focusing on the key question ‘does this significantly reduced supply of active playing fields in new suburbs matter?’ This stage is a comprehensive literature review on the values of active open space, the importance of organised sport that active open space facilitates and the benefits of being physically active. The conclusion of this stage of the research is that communities that do not have access to active playing fields are more likely to miss out on the specific social and economic benefits attributable to such spaces and, in particular, to the activities that they support. The local government in the outer metropolitan areas of Perth are significantly worse off than the middle and inner suburbs with regard to the three key factors of supply of active open space, demand for active open space and socio-economic vulnerability. These findings have significant implications for planners and policy makers in planning for new suburbs.