Since 2018 Rochdale have been part of Greater Manchester’s Place Partnership with Sport England to build healthier, more active communities. Our mission has been to enable active lives for all by reducing inactivity and health inequalities. We’ve looked to do this by working together with people, communities and organisations to create long lasting change.
Through targeted work in places like Milkstone and Deeplish, Rochdale have demonstrated the importance and impact of engagement and collaboration at both strategic and community level.
Using Place Partner principles, the Rochdale team worked to raise the profile and understanding of how physical activity can support other agendas at both an operational and strategic level. This involved working together with new partners within the system.
One example of this is the Talk English programme, where the Place Partner team worked together with the Work, Health and Skills team. The Talk English programme, supports adults who have low levels of spoken English and through the new connection, the team were able to add conversations about health and physical activity to the programme. This initial success led to an ongoing partnership, with the Place Partner team offering career development opportunities.
At a strategic and governance level the team also had numerous successes in ensuring that physical activity is embedded across different agendas. For example the Climate Co-operators group have identified moving more and increasing active travel as key aims. Whilst the Physical Activity & Healthy Weight Steering Group has taken on the Place Partner principles. This group has brought together key stakeholders and is driving forward the physical activity agenda across the council.
Community engagement and activation is seen as the key to Place Partnership working. This way of working in Rochdale is exemplified through their work in Stonyfield Park.
The redevelopment of Stonyfield Park has been a focus of the Place teams work. Once a disused space, the team worked with residents to turn it into a loved community asset. This work was underpinned by building relationships with residents, being flexible and cross-sector partnership working. The initial goal was building trusting relationships with the local community and there has now been long-term engagement with the local community. The team is now shifting power to the community and there is now a “Friends of Stoneyfield Park”. Through collaboration with other VCSE groups including Groundworks who has identified the park as a ‘Green Hub project’, the “friends of” now drives the park’s development forward.
The energy around this work has also helped to attract new partners. These include local councillors, the Environmental Management team, and charities and volunteer groups, all who have brought new opportunities to help support the park’s ongoing transformation.
Addressing inequalities within the system and community has always been at the heart of Rochdale’s Place Partner work.
An example of this is the Community Investment Fund (CiF). This fund targeted those facing the greatest barriers to physical activity and had a focus of building relationships. One example is Newbold Community Garden project. Through the initial engagement with a community champion, a derelict piece of land is now being developed into a community garden. Applying for the CiF and being successful, built up the skills and confidence of the community champion. Using these new skills the champion felt confident to apply for more funding in order to complete and build on the project. To read more about the Newbold project please see the case study.
An example of tackling inequalities at a system level is Your Trust’s work in leisure centres. YourTrust identified gaps within their existing EDI polices and offer for disabled people. Once identified, the team have implemented a number of changes to make their services more inclusive. Examples of this include:
For the next stage of the Place Partner work, Rochdale are applying their learning borough wide. Rochdale’s planned work is underpinned by Rochdale’s Anti-poverty Strategy.
The team wants to build on and expand its relationships with the VCSE network. From the key learnings, the focus will be on upskilling and building the confidence of communities. This includes exploring ways to provide the community with the skills, confidence and knowledge, to support activities to become sustainable.
This work sits alongside the Rochdale anti-poverty network. This network aims to explore what a poverty proofed physical activity offer may be and ensure we understand the relationships between physical activity and poverty.
Aligning the Anti-poverty and Climate change strategy is active travel and cycling. The Place Partnership’s contribution to this will be through engaging with schools and communities. This engagement will build an understanding around the barriers and perception of active travel. Rochdale will also utilise their existing relationships with schools and build in active travel and/or air quality goals into existing and new programmes.
This work will now be driven and guided by the Rochdale South Neighbourhood Partnership who represent a number of stakeholders and the community within this locality. This group will decide the strategic focus on the targeted Place work guided by local data and community insight. Work is currently underway to create system change to support more children to uptake physical activity in their daily life.
As this neighbourhood partnership is the first to prioritise physical activity, it will be key to share ways of working and insight from place-based work with other partnerships groups.
Sarah Shard, Local Pilot Lead for Rochdale, featured in the second series of The GM Moving Podcast to share the approach they’ve taken in Rochdale, the learnings and what’s next.
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