The Network

Moving together in Rochdale

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

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

Rochdale is split into four townships: Rochdale, Heywood, Middleton and Pennines, which includes Littleborough.

Rochdale is estimated to be home to over 227,000 people. Active Lives results published by Sport England (November 2022-Nov 2023) shows that 65.6% of adults in Rochdale are active for at least 30 minutes a week, this equates to 116,300 adults moving. However this is a decrease of 600 from 12 months ago and we need to all keep working together to support active lives for all in Rochdale.

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

Active Lives data (academic year 2022-23) also shows that 62.8% of children and young people (CYP) in Rochdale are moving, achieving at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day, this equates to 20,800 CYP moving.

Explore children and young people’s physical activity levels in Rochdale.

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 Rochdale’s Place Partnership

Walking in Rochdale

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.

Rochdale is fortunate to have many areas of natural beauty across the borough, and walking is an ideal way to explore these greenspaces. There are many friendly, sociable group walks taking place each week that help the people of Rochdale to connect with others, discover the local parks, woods and moorland and support good health and positive wellbeing.

Cartwheel Arts Case Story

Designed in response to COVID-19, to promote creative exploration and wellbeing whilst in lockdown or isolation. Cartwheel Arts recognised the need to still support the communities they work with and have adapted their original project idea to support individuals and their families during lockdown.

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 £15,376 to nine organisations across Rochdale, including to:

Rochdale Field Naturalists Society to run wildlife identification walks throughout Rochdale
Friends of Alkrington Woods to encourage local people to use the network of paths in the woods both for exercise and active travel
Rochdale Hornets Sporting Foundation to create a new project encouraging socially isolated local people (particularly men) to get out walking together
NatureEd CIC to run walking-based activities for under-fives and their parents and carers
Cartwheel Arts to create a resource to encourage people to get out walking in nature and then to use this as inspiration to create artworks at home
PossAbilities CIC to create illustrated guides of five urban trails around Heywood
Blue Pits Housing Action to set up walking groups for vulnerable adults living with complex mental health conditions, learning disabilities and/or substance misuse
The Burnside Centre to set up, develop and expand a new walking group for Langley residents who are over 50
Link4Life to run community-led walks throughout Rochdale for adults with long-term health conditions

Walking Routes

There are several curated walks in Rochdale, 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

Partners

In Rochdale 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.

Your Trust

Your Trust inspires health, encourage creativity and foster wellbeing for each and every member of Rochdale’s diverse community. Throughout the borough, in leisure and sports centres, community centres and at Hollingworth Lake, Your Trust offer a wide selection of activities to inspire people to lead happier and healthier lives.

Rochdale AFC Community Trust

The official charity set up by Rochdale AFC to carry out community work and charitable projects across the borough of Rochdale. They share the vision of making Rochdale one of the best places in the world to live, work and play– a place where all voices are heard. They use the power of football and our community standing to raise aspirations and transform lives.

Rochdale Hornets Sporting Foundation

Rochdale Hornets have the simple aim of having more people play rugby league more often. Using the power of professional sport, we will inspire children and adults to lead a healthier, fuller life and take a pride in their local community by using a variety of fun, engaging quality assured programmes.

Big Life Group

Living Well is a partnership of services delivered by the Big Life group with Your trust and commissioned by Rochdale Borough Council who work together to help tackle the main causes of long-term ill-health in the borough linked to lifestyle choice. Living Well is to support people when living and feeling well feels too tough to tackle alone. They service people living in Rochdale, Heywood, Middleton and the Pennines who want to improve their health and wellbeing by stopping smoking, losing weight, getting more active, dealing with long-term ill-health linked to everyday living and much more.

Action Together

Action Together knows that people can make things happen because we see it everyday. Across Rochdale, 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.

Rochdale 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 Rochdale, the SGOs are Emma Mooney and Julie Roberts.

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.