Sport England East Midlands has been taking an international lead after being invited to Denmark to talk about Change 4 Sport – the regional plan for sport designed to ensure the East Midlands is the best in England at raising levels of physical activity through sport.

Chairman of the East Midlands Regional Sports Board Len Jackson was invited to a conference run by the South Denmark Fyn regional authority after they discovered Change 4 Sport while researching for the conference on the Internet.

Change 4 Sport is designed to help a wide range of organisations include sport in their work, such as local authorities, county sports partnerships, governing bodies of sport, local strategic partnerships, sub-regional economic partnerships, and groups that tackle crime, skills and the needs of young people.

The Fyn authority invited Len as a representative of best practice and he presented Change 4 Sport from an economic and health perspective using case studies including the Queen’s Medical Centre and National Ice Stadium in Nottingham and the Loughborough Sports Park Project in Leicestershire.

The conference, on the importance of sport on economic development and health in a region, took place on Monday October 31 and had attendees from various South Denmark authorities including health and education.

Len’s presentation was well received with the Danish region looking to follow the East Midlands’ lead but on a smaller scale.

Attendees were particularly impressed by Sport England East Midlands’ work with the Regional Public Health Team. Professor Lindsey Davies, Regional Director of Public Health is a member of the Regional Sports Board and has worked hard to ensure sport and physical activity is aligned across the public health and Regional Sports Board agendas.

The Danish authority also praised the collaborative work pursued by Sport England to develop the sports sector as a key component of the region’s growing economy.  The region supports 46,000 full time employed jobs in the sector with 3,500 sports related businesses.  The partnership with East Midlands development Agency has been particularly powerful in exploring new ways of exploiting the region’s unique characteristics.

Len said: “It’s great for us to have the Fyn Region as a comparative partner as we can learn together and see what strides they are making in similar fields.

“We took the view that spreading the word about our programme in other countries would be great PR for the East Midlands and the presentation was very well received indeed.”