Place

At the heart of our mission to make it easier for everyone to enjoy an active life, is our focus on helping to create the right conditions in local places, to remove inequalities and build relationships that connect networks and advance change.

Why do we work in this way? Because the evidence tells us that the place where a person is born and lives can have a huge influence on how likely they are to be physically active. 

By taking this place-based approach we can better understand and then overcome the barriers that people are facing, using our knowledge and resources to even things up and help ensure everyone has access to activity.

Each of our Active Partnerships has a detailed understanding of the needs of the places in their local area. They have the insight and an extensive knowledge of the people, communities, stakeholders, organisations and systems in each place simply because they work with them every day.  

Because of the disparities that exist, some places need more help than others to tackle inactivity, which is why, together with Sport England and other key partners, we are working to ensure that the greatest resources are invested in the places that need the most support.

This means that instead of each place receiving the same amount of funding, investment will be made in a way that’s proportionate to the level of need. 

The Uniting the Movement strategy which all Active Partnerships are helping to deliver, alongside Sport England and their other long-term partners, has galvanised partners around the agenda of tackling inactivity levels and inequalities in areas of greatest need and this will continue to be our primary objective through our place-based work across England.  

This way of working directly supports the Government’s Get Active strategy, which set ambitious targets of getting 2.5 million more adults and one million more children active by 2030, to tackle the disparities in activity levels across the country.