Tameside to Receive £216,000 Sport England Funding

TAMESIDE will receive £216,000 from the Sport England Place Partner Investment Fund to pay for further opportunities to promote physical activity to improve residents’ health.

Members of Tameside Council’s executive cabinet welcomed news of the grant at their March 27 meeting and agreed a continued approach for increasing physical activity levels across all ages until March, 2025.

The council will spend £30,000 on supporting under-represented groups, such as care-leavers, older residents and young people not in education, work or training to build everyday movement into their daily routine.

Active Tameside (£66,000) and Action Together (£120,000) will share the remaining £186,000 to continue organising programmes within the community and providing a grants programme for local organisations supporting residents to be more active within their communities.

Increasing levels of everyday physical activity – particularly active travel – among everyone who lives, works or is educated in the borough, is a key priority for the council and is a fundamental part of the Healthy and Active Lives section of the council’s new corporate plan.

Physical inactivity, which is associated with one in six deaths in the UK, is estimated to cost the NHS almost £1 billion a year. The annual cost to Tameside, which has the fourth highest rate of physical inactivity among adults in the North West and the 18th highest in England, is £21.5 million. The bill for the UK as a whole is £7.4 billion.

The money will be used to expand the programmes that have proved successful throughout a test-and-learn period, such as working with Manchester Bike Kitchen to offer affordable, reconditioned bikes; getting children into the borough’s parks and greenspaces; creating walking trails and working with partners like Tameside Hospital.

A council spokesman said: “The latest UK chief medical officers’ physical activity guidelines liken physical activity to a wonder drug able to prevent and treat a great many illnesses.

“That’s extremely relevant here in Tameside where almost a third of adults (57,000) are inactive – and that can range from doing some physical activity, but not enough to meet guidelines, to doing nothing at all. More than half of our children (58%) are not active enough.

“We welcome the additional funding from Sport England, which will be managed through the Tameside Active Alliance and invested wisely in the types of events and programmes that have proved effective in the past, allowing us to carry on with our mission to support more people to be healthier by moving more.”