Across Greater Manchester, there is a clear recognition of the importance of walking to population scale change in physical activity and there is widespread understanding of the critical role of walking - for leisure, for travel and for everyday activity.

Dementia friendly walks   Walking routes   Walking groups

Community Investment Fund grants

GM Walking has given grants to nearly 90 local voluntary and community groups with the aim of getting Greater Manchester walking. They offered the grants to support a huge range of activities that encourage people who are usually less active to start or to increase the amount they regularly walk. Almost half of the successful applications were from organisations based in the most deprived 20% of the region.

They gave a total of £30,597 to eight organisations across Bolton, including to:

  • Inside Track (Employment) CIC to help them to build exercise into the daily routine of people from diverse ethnic backgrounds
  • St George’s Day Centre to run a number of meetings of a rural art group
  • Blackrod Sports and Community Centre to enable vulnerable local people to access a friendly, accessible healthy lifestyle provision, and to set up four walking projects for local residents
  • Radcliffe Rotary Club to create the Radcliffe Rotary Way by linking and signposting existing paths around the local area
  • Community and Heritage CIC to help motivate young families to take regular walks together, doing fun and creative activities along the way
  • Bolton Contemporary to design, print and publish walking guidebooks that provide routes, information and activities for families and people with additional accessibility needs
  • Bolton Lads and Girls Club to inspire inactive young people in Bolton to walk more through a series of health and wellbeing sessions
  • City of Trees to offer Dementia Woodland Walks; a project to improve the physical and mental wellbeing and social cohesion of those affected by dementia