Community engagement

With communities at the heart of everything we do it should be no surprise that community outreach has developed, grown and enhanced the lives of our customers in the past 12 months.

Leisure Connection’s Community Programme is based on an agreed set of aspirations, based on the aims and objectives of all our industry partners, from the Department of Health, Sport England, the National Quality Assurance Framework of exercise referral, local authority Culture and Sport Departments, Leisure in the Community and Sports Governing Bodies. Those aspirations are to:

• Increase and encourage participation in sport and physical activity particularly in locally under-represented groups, especially older people, people with disabilities and users of mental health services

• Support programmes which address obesity, particularly in young people

• Support the local GP referral scheme

• Support the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and its legacy plan

We work in partnership to deliver many different community engagement activities across our estate with each contract looking to better coordinate how we engage with our customers and communities. These activities recognise the diversity of our communities and the need to provide appropriate opportunities for everyone to participate in sport and leisure at whatever level they wish.

Through partnership working we want to continue to build strong and inclusive communities through sport and active recreation, ensuring the entire community has the opportunity to participate. We are focusing on projects which widen access to leisure and physical activity amongst hard to reach groups and communities, working closely with PCT’s to ensure all centres have fully functional GP and exercise referral programmes.

We are also committed to providing access to first class training for disabled people. Working in partnership with Buckinghamshire University and WheelPower – the national charity for wheelchair sport – we have developed a new Disability Training Academy. Coaches and exercise professionals get the best training and tuition to enable them to deliver disability sport in their communities.