Putting communities at the heart of getting active

If we want more people to be active, we need to start by understanding them and the places where they live.

It’s an important shift in how we think about physical activity, because being active is not just about whether there is a sports facility nearby or whether someone knows about a local exercise class.

It is shaped by the environment around us, our circumstances, our confidence, our connections and whether we feel that opportunities to be active are really for people like us.

Building from local knowledge

That is why our investment in places is putting communities at the heart of our approach.

Through our place-based investment, made possible through National Lottery funding alongside Exchequer investment, we are working with communities across England where levels of inactivity are highest and where people can face some of the greatest barriers to being active.

The starting point is listening, because locals understand their communities better than anyone.

They know what works, what doesn't, which places feel welcoming and which ones don't, and what gets in the way of being active. They also know the strengths that already exist – the people, organisations, spaces and relationships that can make a difference.

Our job is to help bring those strengths together.

That’s why we’re working alongside local authorities, Active Partnerships, health organisations, voluntary and community groups, schools, sport and physical activity organisations and most importantly local residents, to get more people active.

Practical examples of our place work 

Rather than deciding what a community needs from the outside, we’re creating the space for people locally to help shape the solutions themselves.

We can see what this looks like across the places we work.

In Doncaster, more than 2,500 residents have helped create a community-run 'Friends of' group that now independently delivers physical activity events in local parks.

In Bradford, the JU:MP programme has used insight from children, families and schools to shape action, contributing to more than 70 additional minutes of physical activity per child each week.

And in Blackpool, a youth leadership programme, co-designed with 16-25-year-olds, has brought 20 young people into leadership spaces to help shape decisions.

These are places with different challenges, but the common thread is that local people are helping to define both the problem and its solutions, which is important in communities where inactivity is closely connected to wider inequalities.

In this sense, our Active Lives research shows that those from lower-income households, some ethnic minority communities, disabled people and older adults can face additional barriers to being active.

And our latest data brings this into sharp focus: 53.8% of adults in the least affluent groups are active, compared with 73.2% of the most affluent.

Tackling difficulties for moving

Those barriers are rarely about motivation alone.

They can include cost, transport, safety, confidence, access to facilities and green spaces, caring responsibilities or simply not feeling that traditional opportunities are designed with them in mind.

Our place-based approach allows us to look at those issues from the ground up and it’s where the power of local knowledge becomes so important.

Because a solution that works brilliantly in one community may not work in another.

The role of place-based investment is therefore not to impose a single model, but to support communities to develop approaches that reflect their own needs and assets.

Rather than simply funding individual activities, we’re investing in the relationships, infrastructure and local leadership that are helping change how communities think about and support physical activity.

That is a different kind of investment and one that takes time.

More than sport

We need to understand not just whether people have taken part in an activity, but whether the local system around them is changing.

There are many questions involved, including:

• Are organisations working together differently?
• Do communities have a stronger voice?
• Are opportunities becoming more accessible?
• Are people who have traditionally been less active beginning to see physical activity as something that belongs in their lives?

These are the changes that will help make our progress sustainable.

There is also a wider opportunity here because when people come together around physical activity, the benefits can extend beyond being active itself.

Community activities can create social connections, reduce isolation, help people feel more connected to where they live and improve their health. 

Our 'Social value' research shows that active lifestyles could prevent more than 3.3 million cases of chronic health conditions each year, including depression, back pain and type 2 diabetes, plus delivering an estimated £8 billion in direct net savings to the healthcare system by preventing illness and reducing pressure on the NHS.

That is why our investment in places is about more than sport.

It is about creating the conditions in which being active can become part of everyday life and about ensuring that people have an opportunity to influence what happens in their communities.