Region secures £10m towards fitness scheme

Date published: 13 July 2018


Sport England has awarded Greater Manchester £10m National Lottery funding, having chosen the region as a pilot area to make getting active even easier.

This huge investment to get 75% of people in Greater Manchester to move more in their daily lives was announced when the Greater Manchester Heath and Care Board met at Trafford Town Hall today (Friday).

The Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham; the Chair of Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, Lord Peter Smith; Sport England’s, Justine Blomeley and others donned their trainers for today’s funding announcement.

Details of how all ten areas of Greater Manchester can access funding will be made available next week.

Money will be shared to help people move more and get fit, building on momentum from last summer’s launch of Greater Manchester Moving; the area’s ambitious plan to get everybody moving.

Greater Manchester is one of 12 places chosen by Sport England to work with on a new approach to build healthier, more active communities across England.

Around £100million of National Lottery funding will be invested in the pilot scheme over four years, to create innovative partnerships that make it easier for people in these communities to access sport and physical activity.

In addition to the Sport England funding, an extra £2m from the region’s devolved health body was granted to help make Greater Manchester the country’s first walking city-region. 

Public sector organisations have been urging nurseries, schools, universities and work places to adopt the Daily Mile – a free and fun initiative where children and adults run, jog or walk for 15 minutes every day.

In a further move to make it as easy as possible for people to keep active,  a reciprocal agreement has been revealed by GM Active*, between all ten community leisure trusts in Greater Manchester – meaning all leisure centre members will soon be able to use any of the 87 venues across the entire region without needing separate membership. Perfect for keeping active with friends or after work!

Across Greater Manchester, the amount of people who are inactive varies from 32.5% in Wigan, to 18.3% in Stockport, compared to an England average of 25.6%. Citizens aged 40 – 60, people out-of-work, children and young people outside of school and those with long-term health conditions such as cancer, cardiovascular and respiratory problems are more likely to be inactive. 

Physical inactivity is the fourth leading cause of premature deaths in the UK and costs the country an estimate £7.4 billion a year.


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