Trafford Moving is the borough’s physical activity and sport strategy. The strategy aims to address the issue of physical inactivity in Trafford by maximising community assets such as parks and leisure centres, and is a key part of Trafford’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Trafford Together.
Summary
Trafford Moving is the borough’s physical activity and sport strategy. The strategy aims to address the issue of physical inactivity in Trafford by maximising community assets such as parks and leisure centres, and is a key part of Trafford’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy and Trafford Together.
The implementation of Trafford Moving is lead by a partnership of organisations including the local authority, professional sports organisations, charities, education providers and amateur sports clubs.
Success will mean a culture where physical activity becomes the norm and where it is easy for Trafford residents to make active lifestyle choices.
The challenge
The first iteration of Trafford Moving was drafted in 2018 and at that point the strategy was still quite traditional and generic. The change came through being part of the Local Delivery Pilot with Greater Manchester (GM) Moving, one of 12 national pilots funded through Sport England. This involved all 10 councils in Greater Manchester and enabled the council to be part of a community of learning, influencing thinking and enabling them to do things differently. It has allowed Trafford Council to achieve local and borough ambitions but also contribute to wider GM Moving ambitions.
The council were challenged to target a local geographic area particularly focusing on children and young people, those aged 40-60 with long term health conditions, and those unemployed and at risk of becoming workless. Trafford decided upon Partington which is within the top 10 of Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) in England, and there are several issues in this area related to reduced life expectancy and other socio-economic challenges.
There had already been a lot of ground covered in the area by community leaders and groups and the local authority needed to break down some barriers in the community as there was a poor perception of the council and some cynicism around the effectiveness of previous and interventions and likely success of any future ones.
The solution
What took the work forward quickly was a powerful combination of local pilot principles (i.e. engaging with communities in a more flexible way) and identifying those individuals with an ambition towards promoting physical activity, allowing for asset based community development work to take place. A ‘do with’ rather than a ‘do to’ approach has seen significant progress made.
The local pilot has given the council the opportunity to use small investments to support and build rapport in the most inactive part of the borough. By identifying trusted people within the community (the ‘gatekeepers’) this has helped to unlock relationships and reach those most in need of support. The community have put forward ideas which have then been developed and funding distributed to local organisations in a ‘test and learn’ approach.
The council admit that at times the approach has been a bit ‘hit and miss’, due to doing things that people were not used to, and such an experimental approach has a certain looseness to it compared to traditional sports development. The key has been developing rapport locally and two-way communication. For example, one of the funded projects has been to invest in the re-circulation of a local newsletter (‘The Transmitter’) to ensure that thousands of people in the area were aware of local opportunities and activities.
Alongside the place-based plans there have been several other key elements, for example developing the Active Travel strategy and leisure strategy and using this as the evidence base for a Levelling Up bid of £18 million which will see the leisure offer and some of the community assets improved, working on the place based approach. It has been a test case proving that the principles and learning from the local plan has been able to take investment of £60-70,000 and turn this into approaching £20 million for a community at risk of losing assets.
There has been a realism to the approach too with the focus on moving people from inactive to fairly active, so rather than immediately targeting 150 minutes per week the initial aim is 30 and then looking to gradually increase this.
The impact
Council staff cite the biggest impact as being more driven by outcomes as opposed to numbers and outputs. This has required a culture change in the organization and what they describe as a ‘tough sell’ to their leadership.
There has been a change in how staff and practitioners speak to senior leaders, using case studies to influence and show impact rather than the traditional participation numbers and outputs.
This and strong system leadership has had a ‘trickle down’ impact and a change in how physical activity is delivered and advocated. The council now feel they have the start of a place-based strategy that is much more focused, and are working in the right places with the right people and making the right decisions with them.
The ability to lobby and invest internally, turning one place-based approach into seven and then through that approach small community fund pots have reached seven times as many groups.
How is the new approach being sustained?
In Partington itself there are significant opportunities as new housing is being developed and new people move into the area.
In broader terms the recipe in Partington is now to be repeated in hyper-local place-based ward level physical activity plans and this new approach to Trafford Moving, building on the local pilot work, has now been expanded to seven communities across the borough. The council has positioned this work to be delivered over the next 10 years, relaunching its strategy in September 2022. In each community there is a community hub mainly consisting of Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations driving change in those places.
The next challenge will be in the delivery and governance of the plans, as the council do not have the capacity to run seven local plans as well as coordinate the borough plan. The ambition is for there to be a lead organisation associated with place-based plans.
Lessons learnt
- The council have worked hard to listen to what people in the area want, and used the feedback to learn and co-produce a differentiated and wholesome approach to physical activity.
- The test and learn approach means that certain things that are tried are unsuccessful – the key has been to learn from these but continue to take risks to try new things. In addition some things seen as ‘sure bets’ did not materialize and those things have had to be stopped. The key learning has been to be comfortable being uncomfortable.
- The council were quick to get Local Pilot funding out of the local authority and into communities (no procurement, governance red tape) and this has had a positive impact.
- The council are signing up to working in the seven communities for 10 years, this is long term work. Being consistent and present in those communities will win hearts and minds and lead to change. There are lessons from this longitudinal approach that are not gained from short ad hoc interventions.
- This longer-term approach helps the council to accommodate other perhaps short term funding initiatives such as Holiday Activites and Food which is still output driven.
- Generating fresh ideas is vital to tackle a long standing issue in a new way, the council are keen not to revert back to traditional approaches that have not brought results.
Contact
Tom Haworth, Sport & Physical Activity Relationship Manager