On Friday 6th October 2017 Active Cheshire hosted the Part Of The MOVEment 2 Conference at Cranage Hall, Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.

The event brought the support of 300 stakeholders together to hear the progress that’s been made since Part Of The MOVEment in 2016 when sub-regional stakeholders mandated us to create a Physical Activity Task Force to explore how we might address levels of inactivity locally, thus improving health, wellbeing and prosperity.

As part of the event, a Blueprint to tackle physical inactivity in Cheshire and Warrington was launched. The Blueprint includes 5 key Pillars with the objective to “embed physical activity into all aspects of everyday life”. The 5 Pillars include;

• Active Kids – starting life well with daily active habits at home and in school
• Active Design – building physical activity into the design of homes, towns and major infrastructure to encourage movement and play
• Active Workplace – increasing the health and productivity of employees
• Activators – educating and empowering community leaders, allied health professionals and front line community workers to promote active lifestyles consistently through ONE YOU
• Active Minds – improving the mental health and quality of life to prevent and alleviate mental illness through physical activity

We are now in a period of consultation and following feedback from attendees of the conference we have also held consultation workshops on the 5 pillars.

Why have a Blueprint for Inactivity?

Cheshire and Warrington is stepping up efforts to tackle physical inactivity locally.
Despite significant investment, hard work and strong progress, more than 166,000 local adults
continue to lead sedentary lifestyles. We know that many of this cohort will face wider health and social inequalities, exacerbated by their lack of regular movement.

How we live our lives has changed significantly over the past few decades and we are now less physically active than at any time in human history. At the same time, more evidence has been gathered that links physical inactivity with a growing range of acute, chronic and life-threatening diseases, as well as poor mental health. There is also growing recognition that physical environments that support and encourage physical activity can help improve the public’s health.

However human movement represents a complex behaviour that is influenced by a combination of personal motivation, health and mobility issues, genetic factors, and the social and physical environments in which people live. These factors undoubtedly exert an influence on the propensity to engage in sedentary behaviours as well as in physical activity.

Increasing physical activity is, therefore, a societal, not just an individual problem, thus demanding a population-based, multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary, enabling and culturally relevant approach.

In January, a group of partners from education, planning, business, health, transport and leisure, came together as a Physical Activity Task Force, to assess how we might approach the problem locally. This document sets out their ambitions to embed physical activity into all aspects of everyday life, focusing on a small number of key interventions that we believe will affect local habits.

The simple, action-centred approach will require the support of ‘whole system’ partners across multiple sectors. Their input will add value to the hard work and dedication of existing physical activity and sports providers.

I would like to thank Physical Activity Task Force members for their support and challenge in the collective design of this Blueprint. I would also like to pay tribute to more than 650 self-defined inactive, who’s candid views have helped to shape and inform future action. The case is compelling. Local people deserve our collective best efforts to help them to improve their quality of life.

Professor Steven Broomhead
Chair, Physical Activity Task Force

Click here to download the Blueprint.