14-Aug-09
Leisure Connection hosted the year's biggest Government announcements about sport and physical activity at their flagship Willesden Sports Centre on Thursday 13 August.
The great and the good from Parliament, the leisure and sport industry and other VIPs all attended a briefing by Andy Burnham MP, the Secretary of State for Health, as he set out the Government's vision for a fitter England.
In his speech, the Health Secretary called on the NHS to make the promotion of active lifestyles “core business and not a peripheral concern”. Health professionals should see improving activity rates and getting their patients moving as central to their work.
In his speech, the Health Secretary also gave an update on up and coming plans for Change4Life – the lifestyle revolution that is helping families to eat well, move more and live longer.
In line with Bike4Life, Sky, the entertainment and communications company, working with British Cycling, has organised a summer series of Skyride mass-participation cycling events across five major cities, plus hundreds of local led rides, to encourage all ages and abilities to get back on their bikes. Sky’s target is to inspire a million more people to ride in the next five years.
A Dance Champions Group featuring stars of Strictly Come Dancing including Arlene Phillips, Lisa Snowdon and Darren Bennett, and Come Dancing star Angela Rippon, will be running a national campaign to boost participation in dance in the run up to 2012.
Swim4Life - around 250 councils have already signed up to the Free Swimming programme. More than 20 million young people and senior citizens are eligible to swim for free, and 4.4 million free swims have been made since the scheme began in April. The Department is now reopening the bidding rounds, with another £1 million pounds on offer for councils who didn’t sign up in the first place. In the coming weeks it will also be looking to see how it can support existing free swimming councils to innovate and extend the free swimming offer.
Fresh efforts to build on Natural England’s Walking for Health campaign to make 200,000 more people active by 2012 through Walking for Health under the Walk4Life brand. The Walk4Life programme already provides a service for 30,000 people every week.
Victoria Branch, Leisure Connection’s Marketing Manager said: “Firstly it was great to welcome Andy Burnham MP and the VIPS and media to Willesden Sports Centre. It’s great to see the Government re-committing themselves to boosting sport and physical activity. We are looking forward to working with the Department of Health and the FIA to ensure these initiatives can be delivered locally for the benefit of our communities and the millions of customers we welcome into out centres each year.”
