Sport England hands Calderdale Council £2.65 to get the borough more active

Cabinet will be asked to accept the grant as part of Calderdale’s Sport England local delivery pilot when it meets on Monday February 10 2020.

In 2017 Sport England chose Calderdale as one of 12 local delivery pilot areas in England.

The Council, together with partners, developed and launched Active Calderdale, which aims to tackle local inequalities in physical activity, with the ambition to become the most active borough in the North by 2024.

After months of extensive research, the Council submitted an application for a Pathfinder grant. Sport England has now announced the Council has been successful, being awarded a grant of £2.65 million.

Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Public Health and Cohesion, Councillor Faisal Shoukat said: “Active Calderdale is already changing lives, and I’m delighted that we have received this further funding from Sport England.

"We all know the benefits to our physical and mental health of being more active, but for some there are barriers which stop them being as active as they’d like to be.

"Every penny of this grant has been allocated to projects which help people to overcome these.

“It’s not about going to the gym or running a marathon, which can be quite daunting. It’s just about encouraging people to move more, more often, whether that’s walking the dog, taking the kids to school, carrying heavy shopping or taking the stairs.

“If we can make it easier for people to be active in the places where they live, work, or enjoy their leisure time then they’ll begin to feel the benefits of an active lifestyle.”

The funding will be used to test ways in which physical activity can be embedded across the borough, including through health and social care, e.g. hospitals and GP surgeries; within the workplace; parks and open spaces and voluntary and community organisations.

Initially the majority of the work will be undertaken in Park and North Halifax, however if successful, it will be rolled out across Calderdale.