3.1 Introduction

‘This section provides a summary of the important local issues which need to be considered in the development of the strategy. This has been achieved by analysing the following sources of information:'

• The local strategic priorities which are set out in other important local plans and strategies that influence Active Choices, Active Futures.
• The area profile - key research about North Lincolnshire, which includes health and socio-economic facts and recent research on current levels of participation in physical activity.
• The local infrastructure that currently exists to support opportunities for sport and active recreation.
• Other relevant local research and consultation relating to sport and active recreation.
  

As part of the process for developing the strategy an initial workshop was held in April 2005 for key people. The workshop helped to establish the scope for the strategy and to begin identifying the local issues which needed addressing. The issues raised there were ‘themed’ into the following broad headings:

• Better quality environments for activity
• Active travel (walking and cycling)
• Reducing barriers to physical activity
• Working together (partnership)
• Children young people and families
• Older people

Further work was then done to develop the analysis and shape the priorities for the strategy. This work included:

• Further detailed assessment of local plans and strategies
• Consultation with key people
• A series of focus groups with 'hard to reach', low participation groups
• The inclusion of questions relating to participation and opportunities for sport and active recreation as part of the Community Strategy consultation in December 2005.
• Street surveys in Scunthorpe, Brigg and Epworth done by students from Sheffield Hallam University

3.2 Local strategic priorities relating to sport, active recreation and physical activity

3.2.1 The Community Strategy

Many Faces One Community (2006), produced by the North Lincolnshire Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) is the result of widespread consultation with adult residents, children and young people during the autumn of 2005

Shared Ambitions

• An area that is thriving

• Communities that are confident and caring

• Individuals can see the difference

• Everyone works together for the benefit of the area

Seven Themes

• Safer Neighbourhoods

• Better Homes and Environment

• Better Social Care

• Healthier Communities

• Lifelong Learning

• Greater Economic Success

• More Rewarding Leisure

The LSP has four shared ambitions and identifies seven key areas for improvement with the aim of enhancing the quality of life for all through the coordination of the local strategic partnership. These themes are supported by two principles – Strong Communities and Sustainable Development.

The work of LSP has been organised into four 'local area agreement blocks':

• Children and young people
• Safe and stronger communities
• Healthier communities and older people
• Economic development

Within each block are a number of key performance indicators, which are shared by all partners and will be used to monitor North Lincolnshire's progress in achieving the shared ambitions. Success in the delivery of local area agreements means the reward of further funding from central government. The development of this strategy lets us make the case for sport ‘playing its part’ in the achievement of the priorities for government and local communities. The shared ambitions, key themes and related priorities of the Community Strategy are set in the Council's strategic plan, 'Going Forward Together' and provide a focus and opportunity for the Sport and Active Recreation Strategy to play its part in the achievement of local strategic priorities.

3.2.2 Local strategic framework

The Community Strategy is the overarching strategy, which guides the work of the North Lincolnshire LSP. The following diagram (Figure 4) illustrates the local framework of strategies and plans to which Active Choices, Active Futures connects.

 

 

3.3 Summary – Key local issues

Below is a summary of the key local issues, which will influence the development of the strategy. A fuller explanation and further detail can be found in Appendix 1 of this document.

• Motivating the whole population - The Active People Survey (Sport England 2006) found that 19.1 per cent of people in North Lincolnshire participate in 30 minutes of moderate sport and active recreation three times a week (this compares with a regional average 20.1 per cent). Also, the survey found 53.4 per cent of residents are inactive (compared to a regional average 50.6 per cent). This means they do less than 30 minutes of physical activity each week. Greater levels of inactivity were found in certain groups, for example 76 per cent of people with a limiting disability, 72 per cent of adults aged 55 and over, and 58 per cent of people from disadvantaged communities were inactive. More women then men are inactive in North Lincolnshire (55.2 per cent compared with 51.6 per cent).
  

There is also significant evidence that a high number of people in North Lincolnshire have health related problems that can be linked to physical inactivity. For example, levels of obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are all far greater than the national average, with local obesity levels in the worst 10 per cent of local councils in England. North Lincolnshire’s estimated obesity prevalence (27.1 per cent) is significantly higher than the England average (22.2 per cent) and the highest level in the Yorkshire and Humber region. There is evidence from our community consultation work that many people felt that they were currently active enough and had no interest in becoming more active.

This means that there is a real need to improve awareness about the benefits of activity and to encourage people in North Lincolnshire to participate in physical activity as a way of improving their lifestyle. Key to this is the need to ensure there is a focus on reaching particular groups. These include women, older people, people with disabilities, those from more disadvantaged communities and black and minority ethnic groups who are inactive or rarely active. The need to create demand for physical activity across the area shows a departure from traditional sports strategies. They mostly focused on the supply of facilities and development of programmes.

• Opportunities for children and young people - There is significant evidence from consultation and research that young people in North Lincolnshire are adopting an increasingly unhealthy lifestyle. They also have low levels of aspiration and say there is a lack of opportunities for them to do sport and physical activity. This means that the contribution of the school sport partnerships and the extended schools agenda become increasingly important, especially in the more rural communities where there are fewer facilities.
  

The £80m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme in North Lincolnshire Scunthorpe based schools presents a great opportunity for to maximise impact on the physical activity levels of children and families. Consultation across North Lincolnshire has identified the need for improved sport and physical activity facilities at a number of the schools. A key issue is the extent to which BSF can integrate across local strategic priorities such as more rewarding leisure and healthier lifestyles. Existing good practice from other BSF projects suggests that there is an opportunity to develop and operate facilities, within the Extended Schools concept, allowing schools to develop links to their local community. The development of family learning opportunities linked to sport and active recreation could represent an exciting new model of provision to address the needs of local communities in North Lincolnshire.

Access to activity for children and young people will be largely influenced by family attitudes and awareness and therefore engaging parents and carers will be an important issue. The development of children's centres in North Lincolnshire provides the chance to include physical activity within programmes to support children, parents, carers and families in deprived communities. Children's centres can help to build the confidence of parents to engage in physical activity with children, raising expectations of families and young people. The strategy must help develop opportunities for children and young people with disabilities to start, stay and succeed in sport and active recreation. This should include specific work with families and carers to ensure they are aware of the opportunities and support available.

Evidence suggests a need for considering extreme sports as a way of engaging young people and not just traditional activities (lifestyle sports include activities such as skateboarding, inline skating, BMX, mountain biking, jump biking, rock climbing, snowboarding, parkour or free running).

The Street Sport Leaders programme in North Lincolnshire supports sports activities for young people in crime and anti-social behaviour hotspots. It uses sport to help achieve the Every

Child Matters, Youth Matters and Extended Schools outcomes.

• Action needs to be taken to meet the needs of older people. National data shows that 61 per cent of people aged over 60 are inactive and only 13 per cent reach the minimum weekly levels of activity. According to the Health Survey for England 2003, only eight per cent of men and three per cent of women aged over 75 achieve the minimum weekly levels of activity. The proportion of older people in the population of North Lincolnshire is increasing more quickly than the national average. We must consider the diverse needs of this market. The Active People Survey (2006) has identified that 72 per cent of people aged 55 and over are inactive in North Lincolnshire.

North Lincolnshire's £900,000 Freshstart centres which means they are at greater risk of being unable to live independently later in life. Others who are currently active wish to carry on being active. It’s essential that work in this area focuses on getting more people active in later life. Programme aims to transform the way recreation, leisure, care and support for older people is organised. It has a clear focus on preventative care and supporting independent living. Freshstart centres are a shift away from focussing care on the sick and needy but towards a more preventative approach. They are designed to give older people a service that offers more flexibility, quality and choice. This represents an opportunity to develop tailored sport, physical activity and recreation programmes for older people.

• There is a need to increase resources for the promotion of opportunities to participate in sport, physical activity and active recreation locally. This has been recognised as a problem nationally and has partly been addressed by the Department of Health's Small Change Big Difference campaign. But this needs to be supported by a concerted, long-term local initiative. In addition there is evidence of a low level of awareness and some misunderstanding about pricing and access to facilities for disadvantaged groups. With the introduction of Extended Schools, education becomes a key driver for improving this situation. In order to achieve the ‘core offer’ Extended Schools will raise awareness of options for local involvement through other services in the area. It will also provide opportunities through community access to its facilities. The BSF programme for secondary schools will provide the important drive and opportunity to ensure safe access to school facilities for participating in sport, physical activity and active recreation. It will also help with developing innovative and creative design of sports facilities.

• Support for voluntary and community sector organisations
  The council has been very successful in generating and distributing grant funding for such groups but there is still important work to be done to increase awareness about opportunities and the availability of support among some voluntary and community sector agencies. There is evidence of a large voluntary sector for sport, and volunteering levels to support sport and active recreation are above the regional and national average. Plans to develop a volunteer bureau, and the development of the community sports network in the area offer opportunities to address some of these issues. Research by the Humber Sports Partnership suggests that there are capacity issues for sports clubs and the local voluntary sports sector as a whole. There is a need for more quality training to develop skills and knowledge in a number of areas including committee management, child protection, funding, and effective links with schools. The ongoing development of a greater number of better quality volunteers to support sport and active recreation in North Lincolnshire is crucial to increasing participation. The opportunity exists to link with the Humber Sports Partnership who have the strategic lead on workforce development planning within the Humber for sport and active recreation.
  
  

• There is also a need to maximise opportunities to develop new types of provision. While plans are in place to modernise council sport and leisure facilities there needs to be consideration of how other opportunities can be provided. Satisfaction with sports provision in the area is 64 per cent, which is below the regional average of 68.7 per cent (Active People Survey 2006). It is expected that this will be improved given modernisation plans. It is essential that residents perceive the cost of using leisure facilities as representing good value for money. This needs careful consideration against the ongoing requirement to maximise income generation. People must think of the future role of public facilities in the delivery of the strategy, in the health and fitness market for example, access to public provision assumes greater importance because unlike other areas North Lincolnshire has not attracted the major health and fitness chains. This also underlines the importance of partnerships with other providers to increase the number of opportunities for sport and active recreation. Proposals for the development of community health and fitness facilities by Scunthorpe United and Building Schools for the Future are examples of this. The Community Buildings Strategy will help the development of support networks to assist volunteers in the running of community buildings and the delivery of quality provision. Support to help the voluntary and community sector therefore assumes greater importance.

• Parks and open spaces - There are also resident satisfaction concerns about access to parks and open spaces. This is because of quality and safety issues and may be a significant barrier to the development of informal sport and active recreation. Despite this, there are significant developments in North Lincolnshire. The Strategic Development Framework for Scunthorpe makes proposals relating to parks and open spaces. These clearly have strong connections to sport, physical activity and active recreation:

1. New urban heart

This involves creating a park central to the renaissance of Scunthorpe. The park will be an icon of national quality and be a focal point for recreation, sport and leisure.

2. New century garden town

The New Century Garden Town Transformational Strategy proposes a Green Structure comprising:

• New Central Park
• Neighbourhood Parks – quality local open space for informal, spontaneous activity
• Green links – a network of green links and renaissance routes and gateways including a joined up cycle and footpath network. This will link Scunthorpe to nearby villages for leisure cycling and walking and active transport.

3. Lincolnshire lakes

This involves the creation of a new sustainable waterside setting and neighbourhood for Scunthorpe. It will provide, among other things, new sport and active recreation opportunities. This is an ambitious scheme that should be seen as a 'slow-burn' project, not a sprint. It is therefore beyond the timescale for the sport and active recreation strategy. Although a playing pitch strategy has been completed there is a need for a strategy to guide the future development of parks and open spaces and their contribution to informal active recreation.

• Walking and cycling for leisure and travel - The local facilities for walking and cycling play an important role in promoting increased physical activity. This can be through both cycling and walking for either leisure or travel. There are good ideas from the Local Transport Plan (LTP) and development frameworks to support creating ‘places and spaces’ for activity. This also extends to the infrastructure for cycling and walking for travel. The issue is how to build on these improvements by promoting cycling and walking.

North Lincolnshire’s Local Transport Plan proposes to:

• develop the scope for cycling to be used for utility purposes (such as cycling for travel and leisure cycling).
• encourage increased ‘cycling and walking for travel’ use of public rights of ways. This is by continuing to develop the use of the rights of way network as a recreational resource.
• through the Scunthorpe Urban Renaissance project, provide a cycle network in Scunthorpe and Bottesford by filling in the gaps between cycle routes and providing links to the key employment, shopping, education and hospital locations. This includes plans for Central Park and the proposed Sports Academy.

• increase demand for cycling and walking as a means of travel in North Lincolnshire.
  

The education sector also has an important role to play in promoting opportunities for developing cycling and walking to school programmes. As part of the Healthy Schools Standard, school travel plans could incorporate walking buses for example and as part of the Personalised Learning agenda, where more and more pupils will work at multi-site venues. Schools should be encouraged to think of creative solutions to transporting pupils other than through traditional methods.

Cycling or walking as a means of travel is an opportunity for sport, active recreation and physical activity to make contributions to strategic priorities. These include more rewarding leisure, healthier lifestyles and better homes and environments.

• Partnerships - While there is evidence of good multi-agency working, there is the need to sort ‘common’ agendas, agree appropriate representation, and to bring clarity of purpose to meetings and working groups. Delivering this strategy may need a significant rethink as to how joint planning and delivery of services is done.

Looking at neighbourhood or area-based ways of planning and delivering services may have some benefits. In particular because of the diverse nature of North Lincolnshire’s communities. There is also a need to ensure that the Local Strategic Partnership recognises the issues identified in this strategy and takes ownership of its implementation.

In the following section we explain how the analysis of the local issues has been developed to create a strategy for future action.