Sport England
Sport England
11/08/2024 | News release | Distributed by Public on 11/08/2024 04:33
Happy anniversary, Place Expansion
by Lisa Dodd-Mayne
Executive director of place, Sport England
They say time flies and while this is a cliché, it is one that's undeniably true.
It's certainly the case when it comes to our Place Partnerships, because as we celebrate a year since we kickstarted our Place Expansion, a lot has happened!
Back in November 2023, our Place Expansion programme committed to investing £250 million of National Lottery and Exchequer funding into local communities across England in the following five years, to ensure those in greatest need were able to get active.
We've had a busy and positive year
In the past 12 months, and through this first phase of this Place Expansion, we've invested in 53 new places across England, partnering with 27 Active Partnershipsand the dedicated organisations they work alongside.
From Swindon to Stoke-on-Trent, Blackpool to Brent and Walsall to West Norfolk, we've been partnering with key stakeholders in each of these places to establish what the local ambition and approach will be.
And through this way of working we have engaged partners from local government, the health sector, the community and voluntary sector, and the transport and housing sectors.
The result? A real positivity from these stakeholders about the approach we are taking.
We are currently working alongside our partners to establish 'where next?' so that we can continue to grow this approach with pace and impact (spoiler alert: we have plans to expand our investment to 80 places in the coming months).
We've also begun to invest £35m into our original 12 Place Partnerships to help deepen and strengthen these relationships so that, together, we can have an even greater impact.
Yet, we want all places to feel part of this approach.
With that aim in mind, most recently work began to roll out our Universal Offer, which will see a £25m investment to support the whole sector to supercharge their efforts to tackle inequality and inactivity and evaluate the impact they are having.
We are currently working alongside our partners to establish 'where next?' so that we can continue to grow this approach with pace and impact.
Our support will ensure all places across England will gain access to the tools, resources, learnings and capabilities to help them work more collaboratively and achieve the systemic change that is needed at a local level to address the barriers to getting people active.
By galvanising the system in this way, we know we can bring about lasting and sustainable change to every part of the country.
Working together for local change
Since launching our place-based expansion last November, we've invested nearly £20m to help each of our place partners develop their individual approach.
This way of working - ground up and rooted in the needs of local communities - is contributing towards achieving a positive impact that we have not seen previously.
We've seen that baking in physical activity into local, long-term strategic and policy commitments is a key solution to driving change within wider outcomes such as health, environmental sustainability and community cohesion.
Take Exeter as an example.
They have embedded our Active Design principlesinto their Liveable Exeterstrategy - a 20-year housing plan - by which they will build 12,000 homes where giving people chances of being physically active are at the front and centre of those developments.
We're also seeing greater connection and collaboration amongst partners within a place than we've ever seen before.
At the end of September, the Greater Manchester Memorandum of Understandingbrought together the combined authority, integrated care partnership, the transport, voluntary and community sectors, leisure providers, the GM MovingActive Partnershipand Sport England.
Through this collaboration, we will see resources aligned to support the integration of physical activity and sport at the highest decision-making levels in the city and region.
And within these communities, we are seeing that this work is contributing towards positive signs of inequalities reducing and the inactivity gap closing.
The contribution of the work and the focus of partners in Greater Manchester has seen year-on-year reductions of inactivity levels in children and young people and, for the first time, this is lower than the national average.
Meanwhile, in Pennine Lancashire, direct engagement and collaboration with the Muslim community has seen over 5,000 young people increase their daily activity levels through the Active Madrassahs programme.
More positive change to come
Impact like this is being felt up and down the country and this work really does speak for itself with a robust message: together we are stronger.
Our Place Partnerships will see us work in every corner of the country, partnering with organisations in areas that face the biggest barriers to a more active life.
Together we will create lasting change within the communities that need it most to ensure that more people can live active and healthier lives for longer.
So, looking forward to reaching new places in the next year and to keep celebrating across the country.
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