The Network

Moving together in Oldham

Learn about the work happening within Oldham to support active lives for all

diverse group of people walking in a park surrounded my trees and grass

Oldham consists of seven neighbourhood areas; Chadderton, Failsworth & Hollinwood, East Oldham District, West Oldham District, Royton, Shaw & Crompton, Saddleworth & Lees.

Oldham is estimated to be home to over 242,100 people. The Active Lives results published by Sport England (November 2022-Nov 2023) shows that 65.0% of adults in Oldham are active for at least 30 minutes a week, this equates to 122,700 adults moving. However this is a decrease of 11,200 from 12 months ago and we need to all keep working together to support active lives for all in Oldham.

Learn more about Oldham activity levels related to key demographic data such as gender, age and disability.

Active Lives data (academic year 2022-23) also shows that 69.2% of children and young people (CYP) in Oldham are moving, achieving at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day, this equates to 27,200 CYP moving.

Explore CYP’s physical activity levels in Oldham.

Place Partnerships

Place Partnerships aim to reduce inactivity and health inequalities. To do this we take a place-based, approach that brings together people, communities, and organisations to create sustainable solutions to inactivity.

Read about Oldham’s Place Partnership

Local Strategy

Local strategy: The Oldham Plan

This plan has been built from the ground up, in collaboration with residents, businesses, and partners across every part of Oldham. Through conversations, feedback, and shared insights, Oldham has developed a clear set of priorities that respond to the needs and aspirations of local communities.

Explore the Oldham Plan

Walking in Oldham

Milltown to Mountains Case Story

Milltown to Mountains is a partnership between Uprojects, WiFi North West and BAME Connect. This group of Oldham women of Pakistani and Bangladeshi origin started walking from scratch in their local urban parks. They built up their walking bit by bit, despite the challenges presented by lockdown, to the point where they were able to conquer Mount Snowdon.

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 £53,609 to five organisations across Oldham, including to:

Saddleworth Community Project CIC to run quarterly Walk for Life events
Starling to create and distribute a sensory materials pack featuring a range of fun walking activities for young neurodiverse people
WiFi NW and UProjects to develop a new walking project for women from diverse ethnic backgrounds to take them gradually from inactivity to much longer walks, including climbing Mount Snowdon
ABCD After Breast Cancer Diagnosis to train current and former breast cancer patients as Nordic walking instructors who will then deliver this activity to other breast cancer patients
Mahdlo (Oldham Youth Zone) to increase the number of young people participating in, enjoying and leading walking activities in Oldham

Walking Routes

There are several curated walks in Bury, visit the GM Walking website to discover new routes in your borough

visit gmwalking.co.uk

Walking Groups

Find active walking groups in your area

Find walking groups at gmawalking.org.uk

Together Fund Grants

GM Moving has been working with Sport England to identify, support, and offer funding to community groups and organisations passionate about tackling inequalities surrounding access to sport and physical activity opportunities for priority audiences within their local areas.

In Oldham, the following projects benefitted from the funding and have been successful in engaging their communities and improving physical activity levels.

Real Education Empowering Lives

Women Chai Project

Point

Full Circle

Well Mental

Oldham Greenhill Community Sports and Rec Club

Rio Ferdinand Foundation

WIFI North West

Partners

In Oldham a range of partners are working to support people to be more active and to design moving, physical activity and sport back into daily life.

Get Oldham Active

Focus on making small changes to your lifestyle brings big benefits, with menu of opportunities within Oldham.

Oldham Community Leisure

OCL offer the largest range of leisure facilities, activities and gyms with swimming pools in Oldham.

Oldham Athletic Community Trust

The charitable trust for Oldham Athletic Football Club. Using the power of football, the trust works in partnership with its local community to provide positive opportunities through sport, inspire and reward our local community.

Action Together

Action Together knows that people can make things happen because we see it everyday. Across Oldham, there are thousands of people changing lives, improving neighbourhoods and contributing positively to our local area.

Action Together offers a range of support to strengthen communities. We believe that by learning together, sharing skills and pooling resources we can get more done.

Oldham's School Games Organisers

School Games Organisers (SGOs) have several key roles: to coordinate appropriate competitive opportunities for all young people from Key Stage 2-4, to recruit, train and deploy a suitable workforce, and to support the development of club opportunities for all young people. In Oldham, the SGOs are Tim Liptrot and Dean Hepburn.

Transport for Greater Manchester

TfGM have a number of schemes aimed at making active travel the number one choice for travelling to work, to school and to the shops. This includes ‘The Bee Network’ connecting up areas and communities in Greater Manchester, making it easy, safe and attractive for people to travel on foot or by bike for everyday trips.