A key GM Moving priority is to grow and spread place-based partnerships, approaches and environments to create conditions for active lives across Greater Manchester.
“The fundamental question is to understand how working with, and in, places, we can address the stubborn inequalities that exist among the least active through community-led solutions." GM Local Pilot Process Evaluation, 2020-21
The GM Moving approach to working in ‘place’ is not to create a universal blueprint of interventions, but to establish a set of principles of how to work, to support and enable long-term culture change, system change and behaviour change. The approach explores questions of how we recognise the strengths, challenges and opportunities in different neighbourhoods and communities and grow what’s good. It’s about how we design activities, spaces and facilities that enable everyday movement in ways that are appropriate to the needs of a community, and supporting the most valuable assets in a place – the people.
Within a place-based approach there needs to be a willingness to test, adapt and learn; to celebrate and understand successes; to be brave and honest; to learn from failure; to work alongside people, statutory and voluntary organisations; to learn, share and spread what’s good across a place; to create a new way of connecting conversations, bringing greater value and; to shift from a one dimensional, statistical evidence base, to one which is more nuanced that includes the individual and community stories and impacts.