Since 2018 Trafford have been part of Greater Manchester’s Place Partnership with Sport England to build healthier, more active communities.
As part of the Greater Manchester place partnership the mission is to enable active lives for all by reducing inactivity and health inequalities. Through a place-based, collaborative approach that brings together people, communities, and organisations to create sustainable solutions to inactivity.
Trafford have seen multiple systems shifts in the first stage of place partnership work.
One story of Trafford’s place partner success has been the application of local insight and learning and using it to leverage further interest and investment.
This is exemplified in the initial work carried out in Partington. Early community engagement highlighted the importance the built and natural environment on an activity. This led to deeper dive conversations on Partington Sports village and how it could meet local need. The result was a successful Levelling- up bid built on community conversation and supported by local data. This highlighted how local community voice and place can be used to shape large scale infrastructure projects. The high-profile nature of levelling up fund also generated additional interest in place partner principles from senior leaders.
The strength of support of the place partner work in Trafford has seen physical activity and PBW discussed and embedded across sectors in the council and with external partners. The Trafford Moving strategy has place based principles at its heart. This strategy also highlights the importance of a whole systems approach which has seen physical activity embedded across four out of five Trafford councils’ corporate objectives.
This support for place-based work is reflected in deepening plans which will see the creation of seven neighbourhood moving partnerships aimed at reducing inactivity and health inequalities.
Collaboration has been highlighted as key to a place based and whole systems approach. This has resulted in collaboration across sectors and organisation be emphasised by the Trafford place partner team. Collaboration and emphasis on whole systems approach is detailed in the Trafford Moving strategy which touches on leisure, active travel, education and health.
The neighbourhood plans also reflect a collaborative culture, with each partnership including multiple cross sector partners and the community coming together.
Looking forward, Trafford have the ambition to work in seven locations using their neighbourhood model. Their plans are built around a specific approach based on their learnings from the local pilot work.
Based on the success of the work in Partington, seven neighbourhood partnerships have now been created. These partnerships are Partington, Old Trafford, Stretford, Gorse Hill, Sale West, Sale Moor and Broomwood. These cross-sector partnerships will build local knowledge of the area. Each partnership will develop a localised action plan aimed at enabling its residents to be more active.
Trafford recognise the importance of capturing and understanding learning is to making the work sustainable. For deepening they want to build and collate insight from local place based work such as Creating Active schools and Right to the Streets. They will also look to build up greater local insight for certain demographics where there are gaps, such as those with long term health conditions or disabled people.
Deepening will also see a push to grow the capacity and knowledge of evaluation skills within the system. Trafford have identified ABCD training, and ripple effect management as some of the key skills that can support the help others better understand and articulate the work and its impact. These skills will help embed a learning culture in Trafford and the neighbourhood partnerships and ensure that hyperfocal data and insights are captured and shared.
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