Agenda item

Report of the Director of Sport and Culture and the Corporate Director of Commercial and Operations

Alex Brown, Community Sport and Physical Activity Officer, Eddie Curry, Head of Parks and Open Spaces, and Councillor David Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Sport and Leisure, introduced the Park Lives Healthy Lifestyle Activity Programme 2016, highlighting the following points:

(a)  Nottingham was one of 10 authorities successful in securing funding from Coca Cola;

(b)  there are lots of Friends and Parks groups around the city that need to be engaged with. There will be opportunities to engage local people, get them involved in events as well as providing some training;

(c)  other core cities have been talking about selling off their parks, but Nottingham City Council has invested over £28m, including refurbishing playgrounds, installing outdoor gyms, and major improvements to larger parks. We now have 24 Green Flags and 9 Community Green Flags. A lot of that money has come from local councillors funding, with a lot of external sources as well;

(d)  Park Lives runs up to 2020, and lots of activities will be organised, but ideally it will be sustainable. There can be more than 1 friends group per park, and there could be activity friends groups (such as dog walking, litter picking, walking groups, outdoor yoga etc.) where people may continue after the scheme funding has ended. Friends groups and community support can demonstrate community involvement, which can help with external funding bids;

(e)  last year there were over 450 activity sessions, all free. Some were for adults, some were for families, some were for children and some were for older people. They were held at all times of day and weekends, to remove barriers and be more accessible. This year, activities will be much more locally focused, concentrating on what activities people want and when they want them in their parks.

(f)  the Park Lives Team can provide coaches or instructors, or provide training to get local people qualified as coaches to make it more sustainable. There is lots of help and support available from the team;

(g)  the main aim of the scheme is to get people to participate in low level activity. Activities and groups can be tailored to the needs of local people, such as dog walkers, mums with prams, conservation sessions, games of rounders, or outdoor yoga. It’s not about the Olympians of the future, just about getting people off the sofa and more active. For example, Derbyshire nature reserve group dog walkers were provided with litter pickers by the Council.

Following questions and comments from the Committee, additional information was provided:

(h)  The Park Lives team can help to bring people together on an area basis and see what they would like to do;

(i)  The Park Lives team can and will work with anyone, including Nottingham City Homes, other projects and organisations or community groups. There are no age or other restrictions, they will work with anyone to encourage any physical activity;

(j)  some existing friends groups have had average ages of 60+, so it is exciting to bring in younger people to these friends groups. People make parks work;

(k)  ambassadors speak positively and sign-post, whilst activators may lead sessions or coach, train, or organise. There will be investment in finding and training activators;

(l)  it was suggested that tenancies for buildings within parks could have “being a champion” as a condition of their lease, however, whilst it was agreed that encouraging this would be a great opportunity, it would not be suitable to add it as a condition as some tenancies are already very hard to fill.

RESOLVED to:

(1)  note the draft ParkLives programme for 2016;

(2)  request that nominations for Local ParkLives Ambassadors/Activators are emailed to parklives@nottinghamcity.gov.uk.