Taxonomy term

Oxfordshire is one of ten early testers for Place Universal Offer (PUO) funding in England and we’ve used this support to turbo-charge our community-driven work to tackle systemic inequalities and to get more people moving.

With Oxfordshire becoming a Marmot Place, proportionate universalism is writ large in our work as a system.

PUO investment gives us a practical opportunity to provide a universal offer of leadership training, supporting work in culturally-competent ways, upscaling what works and sharing learning; all whilst, simultaneously, focusing more intensely on where needs are greatest and inequalities are most stark.

The role of Community Anchor Organisations

Our belief is that the closer we are to the challenges, the nearer we are to finding their solutions too.

PUO work is more than simply starting from scratch or creating new projects or programmes.

Instead, it’s about identifying community leaders in priority areas who already understand their barriers and have trust within their own communities.

PUO is also about working with and through them to create the biggest impact, and it’s about listening far more than talking and being ready to learn and shift the way that we work to optimise processes and results.

That’s why we have made a deliberate choice to work with a small number of Community Anchor Organisations in our priority neighbourhoods, including Oxford Community Action.

By working in this way, we can put lived experiences at the front and centre in the creation of solutions.

What difference is being made so far?

Whilst it is early days for our PUO journey, we are seeing some positive early signs that reinforce how it’s possible to enable both short-term action and long-term systemic shifts.
 

Communities can’t wait years for change, and they shouldn’t have to, but PUO funding has enabled us to start creating the environments needed for long-term change to empower action now.

The conditions defining these new environments are:

• an increase in referrals from communities in priority areas into sport and physical activity interventions, which have proven to decrease inactivity and to improve wellbeing
• regular dialogue with community leaders, which has strengthened our organisational knowledge and our understanding of community matters
• direct community feedback and collaborative work with national governing bodies and their constituent clubs, which has resulted in the creation of new provisions, especially Sunnah activities
• placing community needs at the front and centre of physical activity opportunities, which has resulted in five grassroots organisations receiving support to sustain these activities by Oxford Community Action
• more upstream, systemic conversations taking place about how community groups can access leisure, sport and activity more easily.

Key learnings so far

So how has all this work helped us grow?

These are the key learnings that we’d like to share in case they can help others too:

• Community leaders are not just vehicles through which communities can be reached and physical activity delivered. They are strategic trailblazers and face the same challenges as any other leads. In fact, the stakes on them are arguably higher as they live, work and play in the communities they serve.
• Community work is a 24/7 job for community leaders. Organisationally, they need to be prepared to work differently. As one community leader told us: “For us, this is our live". We need to demonstrate that we truly care and want to make a difference to successfully build trust to undertake place-based work.
• We need to be ready to step out of our comfort zone and be prepared to really listen to understand and speak honestly with each other.
• We aim to blur the line between organisations, so there’s no more “us and them” and the system and communities see each other as part of the same team.
• By working through Community Anchor Organisations, our network and reach naturally grow to include people and organisations we may not have met otherwise. This allows for the rapid growth of movement, as each person and organisation in turn introduces more people and organisations to this way of working.

We are six months into our three-year PUO journey and are really excited by early learnings and future potential.

This is a system-wide effort, with organisations like Oxford Community Action at the heart of change and, together, we are working to create healthier futures for the residents of Oxfordshire.
 

Boxing is my religion. Like all spiritual journeys it began with a moment of divine inspiration and my baptism was conducted whilst watching Muhammed Ali defeat George Foreman in “The Rumble In The Jungle”.

I grew up in boxing gyms with the sport giving me purpose, discipline and titles – including representing my country on numerous occasions.

These days it offers me the chance to inspire the next generation of boxers and to help anyone who walks through the gym door, to believe in themselves and choose a positive path in life. 

When people ask me why boxing matters so much to me, my answer is simple: it changes and saves lives.

A safe space for all

Of course, it also improves health and builds confidence, but boxing keeps people – especially young people – away from anti-social behaviour and crime, something that I can personally verify as a former Youth Justice Manager. 

With the number of proven offences committed by children seeing an increase of 4%, change has never been so important and there are many ways boxing helps fight crime.

Firstly, boxing gives young people structure and boundaries.

Many of the children and young people who walk through the doors of a boxing gym – like mine in Oldham, Greater Manchester – come from difficult backgrounds and have challenging lives. 

Having little or no access to opportunities and therefore a lack of agency in the world, may result in challenging behaviours. But not dealing with these pressures means they risk spilling out onto the streets and that’s where crime starts. 

Not because young people are 'bad', but because they have nowhere positive to pour their energy into. But boxing gyms can change that, as these spaces are built on discipline, respect, routine and team spirit.

You don’t just turn up to your gym whenever you feel like it. Instead, you’re expected to train on time, plus you have to listen to your coach, and you learn that effort leads to results and that shortcuts rarely work.

These lessons transfer directly into everyday life and children who understand discipline in a boxing gym are far less likely to make reckless decisions outside it.

Boxing also teaches emotional control, becasue contrary to what some may think, this sport helps a young person understand how to control their emotions, particularly aggression, and how to think and act under pressure.

I’ve seen it first hand – children who once lashed out can calm themselves because boxing gave them an outlet for their emotions and that allows them to thrive.

The many lessons of boxing

Boxing is a good metaphor for life and can help to develop those personal and social skills that people need, contributing to tackling deep seated worklessness and low aspirations.

The sport also fosters the development of positive character, self-esteem, self-discipline, courage, perseverance and resilience.

Instead of throwing punches on the street, they hit the pads, the bags and their coach or opponent inside the ring, but always with respect to the sport’s rules, under supervision and with a reason.

Boxing also teaches respect — for yourself and for others. You shake hands, you follow rules and you learn that real strength comes from self-control, not intimidation. These values reduce crime at its roots.

Another factor that's key is the sense of belonging among those practising the sport. A boxing gym offers identity and loyalty because, at a gym, you’re part of a team.

You train together, look out for each other and you wear the gym name with pride. That sense of identity can pull someone away from a path that leads to anti-social behaviour and crime.

I’ve seen boxing change lives in Oldham and Greater Manchester, where young people that were heading toward trouble now have focus and a reason to stay on the straight and narrow, and I’ve also seen young people who had no confidence, find self-belief.

Not all these children will become a champion boxer and that's okay.

Building better lives through sport

The real victories happen when a young person chooses to stay in school, can find a job or simply chooses not to commit a crime because they don’t want to let their gym or coach down.

At our newly refurbished Greater Manchester Boxing and Development Hub, we’ve been lucky enough to benefit from Sport England funding. 

To my mind, our investors aren’t just putting money into a boxing club and community gym. They’re investing in crime prevention and harm minimisation.

It costs less to fund a gym than it does to deal with the consequences of crime and anti-social behaviour – policing, court cases, prison and reform – as recent estimates place the total economic and social cost of serious youth violence at £11 billion between 2009 and 2020.

For me, boxing is more than titles and trophies, it’s about giving people a chance.

Every time a young person chooses to walk into a gym and away from 'the road', I believe that’s crime prevention in action and that’s why boxing will always matter. 

As one of the 10 boroughs of Greater Manchester, Oldham forms part of Sport England’s Place Partnership with Greater Manchester Moving and other local bodies to implement Sport England's Uniting the Movement strategy for getting people active.

I’m proud of what boxing can do to change lives.

In the words of the iconic social activist, pacifist and politician, Nelson Mandela: “Sport can awaken hope where there was previously only despair.”

Every day, I get to see the truth in these great words in action.
 

Suicide prevention and increased employability among young men might not be the traditional aims of physical activity programmes, but at Rise – the leading North East health and wellbeing charity – we're showing how lives and communities can be transformed using the power of movement.

Rise is the active partnership for Tyne and Wear, Northumberland and County Durham, and we’re using physical activity as part of a pioneering approach to reduce inequalities and to boost physical and mental health.

As part of this work, we’ve undertaken a significant project in Berwick called Rise’s Healthy Minds for Healthy Lives, working directly with more than 100 men aged 16-30.

Understanding the issues faced by our young men

Like many communities in the North East, young people in Berwick face complex socio-economic problems including unemployment, poor health, relationship difficulties and issues surrounding debt, poverty and substance misuse.

These struggles have had a consequential effect on the mental health of young men in town.

Using data from referrals and initial interviews of the young men we worked with in Berwick, we found that:

• 43% constantly considered suicide
• 76% had diagnosed mental health disorders
• 81% had substance abuse issues
• 67% were unemployed
• 43% faced significant debt.

Our work within the community in Berwick addresses the physical and psychological aspects of wellbeing but it goes beyond that, giving people practical skills as well.

This broad and comprehensive approach helps build stronger and resilient mental health, enhancing young people’s overall quality of life, and by working directly with people who need our help the most, we aim to improve their immediate health and wellbeing.

We also build on their ambitions, motivations and employability prospects, which helps them grow their confidence, improve their mental health and to strengthen their wellbeing through physical activity.

Deacon's story

One positive example from our work within the Berwick community is Deacon’s story.

A local resident of 29 years of age, Deacon had struggled with social issues including anxiety and depression from a young age.
 

Following a difficult living environment, Deacon moved away from his support network to Berwick with his father and that's when isolation set in.

Deacon said: “I needed to be more active and find solutions. I’d never filled in housing applications; I’d never filled in job applications. That help was there when I needed it and I’ve improved in every aspect of my life. I refer to Jaki as the woman who saved my life. She’s absolutely amazing, I cannot thank her enough.”

When Deacon came to see us, I could have scraped him off the floor – he had no sense of self-worth – and I think that had been destroyed by the environment that he had been in.

But then I was able to get him enrolled onto an outdoor equine and nature activity course followed by an employment and wellbeing course.

Fortunately the course providers paid for the transport, which took away that barrier of him getting in from where he lived and he even helped him secure a job out of it!

After gaining employment, Deacon was able to acquire a bike and that enabled him to cycle to and from work, which helped him improve his physical health.

A month after that, he was also offered a local authority flat. The smile on his face was immense. I’m proud of how Deacon has turned it around.

The power of physical activity

Our internal data reflects that since May 2021, Rise has supported 118 young men to improve their lives. Recent evaluations found that: 

• 96% showed a reduced risk of anti-social behaviour
• 76% had successfully applied for a job, training or further learning
• 87% now take part in physical activity
• 75% felt confident with themselves and felt they were making positive choices.

Rise’s Healthy Minds for Healthy Lives project was initially supported by the Northumbria Violence Reduction Unit and London North Eastern Railway and has subsequently been funded by the National Lottery to enable the work to continue.

Through working within communities, we've helped transform the lives of young men, demonstrating how physical activity has the power to enact positive change. 

He wasn’t lazy. He was bright, funny and desperate to be out in the world. But his local park felt unsafe, the youth club had closed and the nearest sport sessions cost more than his family could spare.

By the time he came to my paediatric clinic, what looked like a 'health problem' – low mood, poor sleep, weight gain – was really a place problem.

Why local spaces are key

We often talk about children’s health as if it starts in the hospital or the GP surgery, but as I explored in my recent BBC Radio 4 series, Three Ages of Child, the real foundations of health are laid much earlier and elsewhere: in homes, schools, streets and parks – places where children feel they belong in their own areas.

Sport England’s latest place work and research puts into numbers what many of us see every day – like the fact that over half a million children, one in ten 12-17-year-olds, say they don’t feel they belong in their community.

This means that almost one in five don’t feel proud of where they live, often because there’s nowhere for young people to go to, and because of the worries about crime and antisocial behaviour.

Take a step back and look at how this paints a stark picture of children growing up in places that feel unsafe, unwelcoming and not really 'for them', so it’s no surprise that in those conditions activity levels are low and health problems multiply.

The same research also points to part of the answer.
 

When asked what gives them a sense of community – beyond friends and family – the top answer from young people was sports clubs and activity groups.

Anyone who has ever watched a child beam with pride after football training or a dance class knows why: a club is not just about exercise; it’s about belonging.

It offers a safe place to go with people who know your name and that offers the chance to be part of a team.

Dangers of the postcode lottery

But access to those opportunities is deeply unequal.

In England’s most deprived places, over a third of people are inactive, compared to around a fifth in the least deprived areas – a postcode lottery for physical activity that deepens health inequalities.

As a paediatrician, I see every day that a child’s postcode can be a stronger predictor of their health than their genetic code.

When local streets feel unsafe, there’s nowhere affordable to go and young people don’t feel they belong, it shows up in their bodies and in their minds.

If we care about the future of public health, we have to turn our thinking on its head, because health isn’t built in hospitals. It’s built in communities.

Exercise and sport are a kind of miracle cure – for health, wealth and happiness – but only if everyone can actually take part.

According to research by Sport England, every pound spent on community sport and activity brings multiple pounds back in benefits to health, wellbeing and the wider economy.

That’s why I welcome efforts to work in a genuinely place-based way – including Sport England’s commitment to invest in the areas facing the greatest challenges.

But beyond the work of any single organisation, the principle stays: you can’t fix place-based problems with purely top-down solutions.

Making children proud

For me, this is what it looks like to move from treating symptoms to changing systems.

You can’t lecture a child into feeling proud of their area or prescribe their way out of a broken play park.

But you can bring together the people who know that place best – including children and young people themselves – and invest in the spaces, clubs and connections that allow them to move, play and belong.

That means co-production, not just consultation: listening to what families say they need, backing trusted local organisations, designing activities that reflect different cultures, bodies and lives and being in it for the long haul.

Our children are telling us they want to feel proud of where they live and that they want to be part of something bigger.

Working locally, listening deeply and backing places over the long term is how we start to make that real – street by street, pitch by pitch, park by park.
 

Sport changed my life. I have vivid childhood memories of being driven all over North Yorkshire by my mum and dad.

We spent our Saturdays going from one brilliant and unique cricket ground to another, and I can still hear those echoes of leather on willow when I see them today.

Those weekends set off a lifelong love affair with cricket and the county I’m proud to call home, and even more proud to represent every day as a Mayor of York and North Yorkshire.

Everyone should have the same opportunities to get moving that I did, and that is why I am proud to launch the £2.75 million Movement, Activity and Sport fund.

Bringing the joy of movement to everybody

This is the first of the funds to be launched under my Moving Forward campaign and we are working closely with partners to make sure this investment targets support for those who need it most.

Beyond the health benefits, there aren’t many better ways provided by sport and physical activity to meet new people and build strong relationships in our local communities.

However, this is particularly key in our rural and coastal areas, where there are some pockets of real deprivation.

Too often families cannot get over the hurdle of costly cricket bats, football kits or transport to games, which means that those who would benefit the most aren’t able to get involved.

But by funding activities for those who might otherwise turn to anti-social behaviour, we can change lives and make our towns and villages a better place to live.
 

Our research tells us that over 30% of adults are classed as physically inactive, meaning they do less than 30 minutes of exercise a week, and that over 60% are overweight or obese, increasing the risk of long-term health conditions.

But this reality can be turned, and early intervention and prevention can make a big difference.

We can help that by making positive choices like introducing physical activity in our day to day, by considering more walking, wheeling and cycling for our working commute or to meet up with friends.

We are moving in the right direction, but there’s still so much more work to do!

After years of being ignored or minimised, women’s sport is getting the recognition it deserves with success after success for our national rugby and football teams, but girls still don’t get the same opportunity to get moving when compared to boys.

Moving forward together 

I have seen that first hand, because while my son had the pick of so many football clubs, we struggled to find one for our daughter. How can that be happening in 2025?

This plays out with so many families across the region and the UK every year, and it’s a big reason why girls are more likely to stop playing sport when they become teenagers. But we can also change that.

By enhancing skills development and training in the sector, alongside offering more inclusive activities, we will also tackle the barriers that people with disabilities face.

Disabled people are almost twice as likely to be physically inactive, but by working together with our partners we can start to improve those numbers and change lives.

My Moving Forward campaign is about backing people across our region to build the healthy and thriving communities they deserve. 

I believe in the power of our communities, the people and local organisations that keep them going.  

Our work is made so much easier thanks to the support of our strategic partners, including North Yorkshire Sport and the Place Universal Offer from Sport England and I’m truly excited about these, because together we can achieve so much more!

The best part of my job is seeing the huge impact that hard-working groups have on their neighbourhoods.

They know what they need, and we will work with them every step of the way as we continue Moving Forward together.
 

Given the strong link between physical activity and improved whole-school outcomes – from embedding essential life skills to broadening horizons and helping young people build a positive, lifelong relationship with movement – we support plans for this more concerted effort around the school sport agenda.

The announcement builds on the work the government is already doing with partners including the Youth Sport Trust and ourselves to boost participation, having already invested £100m to upgrade sports facilities back in March this year.

We strongly believe that this new approach to school sport should build on the existing strengths, assets, and resources of the current school sport system.

We look forward to working with government to bring this new approach to life, sharing the insights from the recent School Games Organisers Network Review (whose Objective A report will be published towards the end of the month), shaped by the contributions and time of many colleagues across the school sport landscape.

According to the results from Sport England's latest Active Lives Children and Young People Survey Report, more than half of all children and young people (52.2%) aged from five to 16 are not meeting the Chief Medical Officer’s guideline of taking part in an average of at least 60 minutes of sport or physical activity a day.

The results also show that significant inequalities remain in activity levels, with Black (42%) and Asian (43%) children and young people, and those from the least affluent families (45%), still less likely to play sport or be physically active than the average across all ethnicities and affluence groups.

The outcomes are, of course, concerning, not only for the current physical and mental health and wellbeing of our children and young people, but also for their future too – if people aren’t active when they are children, they are also less likely to be active as adults.

Starting young and local

However, seeing results like these, has led the APNO and Active Partnerships network – a group of 42 organisations who are immersed in their places and that work with local communities and local partners in different parts of the country to help everyone live a more active life – to underline their commitment to working with children and young people.

It’s why we’re more determined than ever to support this key group – especially those who face barriers to be active – and to help them develop a life-long love of sport, physical activity and movement.

This week, around 100 people from across the Active Partnerships network and Sport England will be coming together in Birmingham to explore how we can better support young people through our work in place, as evidence suggests that the place where a person is born and lives has a huge influence on how likely they are to be physically active.

We only get one childhood and there was a time when being a child meant playing out, spending time with friends in person, exploring, joining teams, falling out, making up and everything in between.

Sadly, this is not the case for most young people nowadays, but why?

On the one hand, our research indicates that at least one in four young people feel they don’t ‘belong’ at school.

And Sport England's latest Active Lives Children and Young People report tells us that almost 50% of young people are not meeting the Chief Medical Officers' guidelines of having 60 minutes of physical activity a day, and that young people are spending more time interacting with screens than with their peers.

People here are used to being told what’s wrong but through hope, community spirit and ambition we wanted to focus on ‘what’s strong; not what’s wrong’, using a place-making approach.

Note we talk about an ‘approach’ rather than a ‘plan’ and this is because we’re following a set of principles, instead of rules.

Joining the dots

Place-making is a fluid and dynamic way of working that’s context-focussed, rather than project-focussed.

We wanted to put schools back at the heart of these communities for them to act as catalysts for social change.

However we had also heard stories of persistent absenteeism among students and of the struggle to recruit and retain teachers.

There were also descriptions of pupils' bad behaviour and lack self-regulation, which in many occasions resulted in a lack of aspiration and a rise in apathy.

That all needed to change, so for over 18 months we worked in these places, spent time there, built relationships, listened, learnt and tried to put wind in the sails of the educators and people who know these places better than anyone.

We wanted to listen to the people living, working and playing in these places, but with a listen-to-understand rather than a listen-to-respond attitude, and in order to achieve that we created a new role in schools: the place-maker.

Place-makers are members of staff that live in the community (or have strong connections to it) and who can help activate young people’s talents.

This small group of changemakers have been incredibly effective at joining the dots with local stakeholders including youth services, policing, transport, health and housing.

And there’s more!

We’ve also created the 'Communities of Place’, a series of safe and brave spaces where people are encouraged to raise important issues and work out solutions together.

The importance of trust

In Perry Barr, for instance, girls were not accessing opportunities at the same rate as boys, so the school made a connection to Saathi House, which is a vibrant local community hub specifically designed for women and girls.

Together, they listened to understand the community needs and, as a result, enabled an NFL Flag Football project to provide a safe, diverse and inclusive space for young girls to learn, play and grow together that was managed by a group of female mentors promoting physical fitness, teamwork, confidence and leadership.

Through our approach to Youth Voice, we've also discovered an appetite for Youth Leadership, so the schools invited students to apply to become a young place-maker.

They received 109 applications and there are now 35 young place-makers in Tower Hamlets and The Prescot School, proving the desire for young people to be the change they want to see in their community.

Our place-based work is built on shared values and purpose, because we:

• spend time with people in their places
• build reciprocal relationships and see what we can give rather than extract
• understand by truly listening
• focus on strengths rather than deficits or weaknesses
• are transparent and have tough conversations.

If you take the first letter of these values, you get the most important component of what we do: trust.

Trust is fundamental to us because we’ve learned that progress travels at the speed of trust and that trust is also the hardest thing to earn and the easiest to lose.

And while we are also aware that we don’t have all the answers, we believe that the people in these places do and that part of our collective role is help them to unlock them.

The first time the importance of spatial planning in creating population-level increases in physical activity was articulated was through the You’ve Got This (YGT) programme – the Sport England-funded Place Partnership in South Tees.

Sport England has worked on different approaches to capacity and hosting when taking a place-based, whole-systems perspective to work and I'm happy to have contributed to the latest set of resources published by the organisation.

YGT adopted the socio-ecological approach to systemic change, where policy and the physical environment appear as key components of the wider determinants of health. 

These aspects are recognised as carrying a high weighting in this framework – difficult to influence but once achieved, the changes are highly impactful over the medium and long-term.

The need for cooperation and understanding

These considerations resulted in the creation of my role.

My post looks at improving collaboration between public health, transport planning, and planning departments across South Tees to promote health, well-being, and physical activity through the Local Plan, the wider policy framework, and innovative new programmes.

My job looks at improving the collaboration between public health, transport planning and planning departments across South Tees to promote physical activity through the Local Plan and the wider policy framework for local healthcare services in a number of community wards and venues across Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, and Hambleton and Richmondshire.

Previous attempts to enhance collaboration across South Tees had faltered due to time constraints and heavy workloads.

Recognising this, YGT facilitated initial meetings where urban planners, transport planners and public health practitioners could gather away from the office environment.

This process revealed issues such as a limited understanding of each other's roles and decision-making processes, alongside a shared commitment to creating healthier environments and a strong desire to collaborate.

Over the course of a year, three additional workshop sessions were convened to further explore these issues.

Simultaneously, through Sport England's partnership with the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA), YGT established a new relationship with one of their experts, Gemma Hyde, who played a pivotal role in charting a path forward.

The culmination of these efforts brought together senior planners, transport planners and public health practitioners supported by Sport England, the TCPA and The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI).

Despite initial slow progress, participants valued the time for reflection and identified key issues like capacity and staff training.

Collectively, it was agreed that there were specific challenges related to coordinating the work and addressing the need for knowledge and training among staff and elected members.

To support the process, YGT agreed to fund a position initially for a period of two years and that this role would encompass the whole of South Tees, with Middlesbrough Council (MC) serving as the employer.

This is where I join the story.

Reflecting on progress to date

My background as a behavioural scientist and public health spatial planner definitely came together on this project, as behavioural science studies the patterns, motivations, and factors that influence human behaviour across different contexts, using scientific methods to understand why people make the decisions they do and how behaviour can be modified or improved at individual and societal levels.

Our boroughs, MC and Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council (RCBC) are currently at different stages of the Local Plan cycle.

In the emerging Local Plan for MC, I contributed to the Health and Wellbeing Policy and successfully secured an agreement to require Health Impact Assessments (HIAs) for all residential developments that exceed 100 dwellings.

I also devised an additional HIA screening process based on health and open-space ­deprivation on a ward-by-ward basis to be conducted for all major development across town.

There was also the completion of a Health in All Policies (HiAP) assessment of the emerging plan (Regulation 18).

Productive discussions with colleagues in RCBC have centred on the potential for a similar approach in the future review of the Local Plan.

I've also facilitated, with colleagues across public health and spatial planning and other stakeholders, the creation of MC’s first HIA toolkit, which has physical activity at its heart and taking as our primary model the well-respected HIA materials created by John Wilcox and colleagues at Wakefield City Council.

Public Health South Tees recently completed our Joint Strategic Needs Assessments (JSNAs), to which I also contributed, ensuring that the JSNA is integrated into MC's emerging local plan for health and wellbeing policy.

Once adopted in late 2025 or early 2026, this will provide developers with clear baseline information about our communities and our priority goals for health and wellbeing across the borough.

Looking ahead

The foundational changes we're beginning to implement in South Tees represent a significant shift in how we integrate public health, planning and transport policies to promote physical activity and wellbeing.

However, we face significant challenges ahead.

We'll need to secure sustained funding beyond the post's initial two-year period, maintain momentum across different planning cycles between our boroughs and ensure consistent implementation of our new policies.

Looking to the future, our next steps of sharing best practices through Sport England's expansion process and deepening collaboration with the Tees Valley Combined Authority are crucial for scaling our innovations.

If we succeed, we could contribute to a new standard for how local authorities approach integrated planning for health and physical activity, potentially influencing national strategy and contributing to more active, healthier communities across England.

Health has never been higher on the nation’s agenda and if this was ever in doubt, the launch of the government’s consultation to build a health service fit for the future confirms this.

Their ambitions are clear and aim to move health care ‘from the hospital to community’ and for us at the Active Partnerships network, this is high on our agenda too. 

Unfortunately we also know that our health and care systems are under huge pressure.

According to the Richmond Group of Charities, more than 14 million adults in England live with two or more long-term health conditions. That’s one in four of us and as an ageing population this number is set to grow.

We believe that wealth will be built through health, as people leading active lives turbo-charge our wellbeing and help to prevent and manage illness, saving the NHS billions and thereby boosting economic growth.

Backing this statement is Sport England’s latest social value of sport and physical activity report, which found that being active relieves some of the NHS burden by preventing 1.3 million cases of depression, 600,000 cases of diabetes and 57,000 of dementia. 

November is National Diabetes Month, which brings us an opportunity to consider those living with this long-term health condition.

Without intervention and management, diabetes can limit a person's life satisfaction and can affect all sorts of opportunities including the enjoyment of work and leisure.

According to Diabetes UK, nearly 10% of the Blackburn with Darwen population has this long-term condition and more people have been diagnosed with it in the borough than anywhere else in the North West.

So in June 2024 we began working with Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council and other partners to bring We Are Undefeatable to communities across our region.

We Are Undefeatable is a national behaviour change campaign which encourages people with long-term health conditions to stay active.

Exactly what we needed!

But we wanted it to really resonate and to have maximum impact and for that we needed to make the campaign relevant to our residents.

Combining national efforts with local faces

Developed by 15 leading health and social care charities and backed by The National Lottery funding from Sport England, We Are Undefeatable supports people with a range of health conditions, including (but not limited to) arthritis, Alzheimer’s, asthma, cancer, dementia, heart disease and diabetes.

Through We Are Undefeatable, we wanted to support our residents living with these long-term health conditions to lead a full life and to show them that they can actually improve their physical and mental wellbeing by being active.

So, together with partners across the borough, we sought to localise the campaign by featuring Blackburn with Darwen residents living with these conditions and signposting others to local services. 

We created bus shelter adverts, images for digital screens in the town centres and a social campaign across multiple accounts and platforms with pictures of our residents living with long-term health conditions being active, and – more importantly – feeling the benefits derived from it.

From boxing and wild swimming to cycling and walking, these inspiring individuals showcased the diverse ways to be active, regardless of their condition.

One of these residents was Ralph. 

Ralph has had two heart attacks, a heart bypass and lives with Type 2 Diabetes, which led to him becoming visually impaired.

In films, photos, in print and online, we showed that Ralph loves to swim and how he walks whenever he can to keep as active as possible.    

This approach is working! 

We’ve seen the power of a localised health initiative, in partnership with a national campaign, to help tackle and reduce health inequalities in our borough.

Working together, we took a whole-systems approach to tackling physical inactivity.

We engaged all stakeholders, including council and health leaders, community, voluntary organisations, the wider public sector, private business and local communities themselves, to make a significant difference to the health and wellbeing of our residents.

Using data-driven insights, including population health data at ward-level, and collaborating with a diverse array of partners, the campaign has gone above and beyond initial expectations and made significant impacts in targeted communities.

The collective strength that resides within our communities is inspiring and empowering.

Through localising We Are Undefeatable and through people like Ralph, we’ve shown the transformative power of collaboration and how together we can create a culture of health and wellbeing in Blackburn with Darwen and beyond.
 

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 Partnerships and 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.

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 principles into their Liveable Exeter strategy –  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 Understanding brought together the combined authority, integrated care partnership, the transport, voluntary and community sectors, leisure providers, the GM Moving Active Partnership and 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.
 

He opened the report highlighting how for him, and the rest of our organisation, using a place-based approach is paramount in achieving significant change in our communities.

His vast experience, knowledge and imagination in health, nature, community resilience and physical activity are all having a phenomenal positive impact on the Active Essex Board and the overall team.

The place-based approach signalled by Dr. Bird is especially relevant as we grow our collective place-based work as part of the £250 million investment by Sport England’s Place Partnerships expansion, announced in November 2023.

Learning and sharing our knowledge

In Essex we are carefully planning our transition from local delivery pilot to Place Partnerships.

Adopting a long-term place-based working model has been one of our most fundamental learnings over the past few years.

It ensures a common purpose, secures collaboration between local residents, local voluntary and community organisations, and the networks across the public sector.

The trusted relationships that these create, guarantee that we all understand the unique local conditions and needs, as well as the main barriers and enablers within each place.

Our Impact Report can be easily navigated to look closely at our places, our five strategic priorities and our showcase portfolio programmes, and it underlines our commitment to share and learn.

For instance, since the last edition of this work, we’ve increased our workforce training and system networking and we now produce share-and-learn events to inform and inspire all of us that make up the Essex physical activity system.

We’re excited about what the new year will bring to the people of Essex and how we’ll find new ways of helping them reap the many benefits of being active.

And especially how we’re going to keep sharing all those amazing stories with you all.
 

There’s no better feeling in the world than seeing your work (and that of your colleagues) of the last five years materialising in front of you.

And that’s exactly what happened last week, when I had the pleasure of joining partners on Canvey Island, Essex, to celebrate our work supporting Uniting the Movement.

Active Essex hosted us at the Waterside Farm Leisure Centre, a fantastic backdrop to see the impact of place-based systemic work.

Activities were being delivered for all ages and adapted to be inclusive for all.

I also heard some brilliantly emotional stories of impact and life-changing journeys from individuals in the community.

On top of that, a panel of system leaders from local health and government organisations, as well as Sport England, spoke about how this way of working is creating lasting change and is enabling us all to focus unashamedly on the people that have most to gain from being active.

It was a brilliant day and the perfect platform for launching the expansion of our place partnerships.

We are now ready to grow this as a movement across the country.

We all know how tough life is right now. Particularly prevalent is the cost of living, which is forcing individuals, families and communities to make difficult choices which ultimately means the decision to be active is becoming harder and harder.

For many, though, the cost-of-living crisis isn’t a new phenomenon – it’s just even tougher than ever before and this means that our collective work hasn’t just got bigger, but even more crucial.

We have to find a way, as partners in places, to come together and share our resources behind a common purpose and agenda, to better serve those communities that for too long have been left behind by our sector.

We all appreciate the physical and mental health benefits we receive when we move and this should be an opportunity for everyone, no matter who they are and where they live.

I mentioned that we will be taking a targeted approach that is needs-led in 80-100 places.

However, we want to provide an offer to all – it’s our ambition that all places work in this way and take a systemic approach to these issues.

That’s why we're developing an enhanced ‘Universal Offer’.

This will be an easily accessible suite of tools, resources, investment and support.

Please watch this space for more information on this in the coming weeks and if you are interested in helping us to shape this offer for the future then please complete this short form.

I really hope you want to come on this exciting journey with us.

If we can collaborate and not compete, if we can start with lived experience and build on local assets, if we can focus our collective resources towards those that need it most – then I truly believe by Uniting the Movement in places, we can create a more active and healthier nation.
 

But those working for CAC want to go even further and conduct research to properly understand how the Games will improve the activity levels of the most disconnected communities, their mental health awareness and whether they can increase their levels of walking and cycling.

A series of local delivery pilots (LDPs), and other place-based programmes, have provided us with important learnings to develop and amplify opportunities through the Games legacy and, in particular, through the CAC programme.

Through this scheme we’ve come up with a series of concrete and tangible areas to focus on, in order to reduce levels of inactivity and address inequalities.

At the heart of the CAC fund there are:

• Physical spaces and places to be active in – from streets to open spaces, parks and the waterways that connect our communities
• Networks and organisations working together to support people to get active and environments where communities own what they want and need
• People giving their time to support others
• Leaders across communities at all levels working more closely together
• Policy and strategy changes to sustain approaches and enable further roll out in the future.

Four of these programmes are happening across the West Midlands Combined Authority area – hosted in Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry and a joint programme for the Black Country – as a partnership between the four local authorities of Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and Walsall.

Each place has hosted an association of partners from a wide range of organisations and agencies who have come together to address inequalities and reduce inactivity.

The players involved are working to co-produced and agreed principles, and through this work they are committed to:

• Working in places with the largest health inequalities and areas of greatest levels of inactivity, where the impact can be the greatest
• Ensuring an inclusive and accessible approach in the work it does
• Approaching the work in a collaborative style across sectors by co-producing methods and delivery with groups working through an asset-based community development model
• Having a strong community engagement and being willing to distribute leadership within the community and create co-ownership
• Building approaches based on need, evidence, evaluation and insight
• Building trusted partnerships
• Bringing partners that have a role to play in local wellbeing, working together to embed a sustainable approach to developing active communities
• Joining this work with their local strategic priorities, complementing existing work and opportunities, and bringing forward the chance for joint funding approaches
• Responding to the vision and the five key pillars of the Commonwealth Games 2022.

The CAC programme will also create a system-wide approach that will connect to other Games and join up with the other strands of Sport England’s investment, such as our work with national governing bodies.

Together, we will address inequalities in sport and will develop digital solutions to connect with communities, including the Gen 22 legacy project.

This is a scheme dedicated to young people in the West Midlands to gain life skills from Games-related activities, such as the confidence gained from volunteering to help their community get active.

The programmes started developing concepts and having local conversations in late 2021 and are now moving into the implementation phase.

More will be shared as the programmes grow and we’ll capture the learnings from this vital work.

We know these programmes are key to Sport England’s aspirations within Uniting The Movement. But they’re even more important to local communities and their representatives, who see this not as a project or programme, but as the start of a journey and as a catalyst for change for reducing inactivity and addressing inequalities.