The Network

Moving together in Wigan

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

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

Wigan has seven ‘Service Delivery Footprint’ areas; Wigan Central, Wigan North, South Wigan & Ashton North, Leigh, Ince Hindley Abram and Platt Bridge, Atherton Tyldesley & Mosley Common, Ashton Lowton & Golborne.

Wigan is estimated to be home to over 334,100 people. The latest Active Lives results published by Sport England (November 2022-Nov 2023) shows that 74.1% of adults in Wigan are active for at least 30 minutes a week, this equates to 202,000 adults moving. This is an increase of 5,800 from 12 months ago but we need to all keep working together to support active lives for all in Wigan.

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

Active Lives data (academic year 2022-23) also shows that 67.3% of children and young people (CYP) in Wigan are moving, achieving at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day, this equates to 28,100 CYP moving.

Find more information about children and young people’s physical activity levels in Wigan.

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 Wigan’s Place Partnership

Local Strategy

Wigan’s local strategy – The Wigan Deal

The Wigan Deal is an informal agreement between the council and everyone who lives or works in Wigan to work together to create a better borough. The council is working to realise the potential of Wigan through collaborating with partners across the city-region.

Download the Deal

Walking in Wigan

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.

In addition to our established Wellbeing Walks programme, Wigan Council are working hard to support people in Wigan to walk more every day. Wigan has many greenspaces that can be explored by walking to support good health and positive wellbeing. Working with communities we are also developing more crossing points across the borough as part of the Bee Network. This will help improve the urban walking experience, connect people in communities and encourage more people to choose to walk short, local journeys.

Find out more about walking in Wigan

Walking routes in Greater Manchester

Walking groups in Greater Manchester

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 £6,972 to six organisations across Wigan, including to:

Wigan and Leigh Carers Centre to run guided mindfulness walks for carers and the people they care for
The Willow Project to start a walking group for young people to encourage them to use exercise to support their mental health and wellbeing
Leigh Neighbours Project to develop a Daily Mile route and to provide packages to local groups to enable them to get out walking
Community Integrated Care to set up walking groups for people with complex and profound learning disabilities, physical disabilities and mental health conditions
Wigan Athletic Community Trust to run a 16-week programme to encourage inactive and isolated older people to get walking
Wigan Borough Armed Forces HQ to run weekly walking activities to help tackle a wide range of issues experienced by military veterans and their families

Walking Routes

Discover curated walking routes in Wigan.

visit gmwalking.co.uk

Walking Groups

Find active walking groups in your area

Find walking groups

Partners

In Wigan 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.

Be Well

Be Well is the council services to support people to; Be active, be healthy, be well

Wigan Athletic Community Trust

The charitable trust of Wigan Athletic Football Club, with the aim to improve health, enhance life chances and create stronger, safer communities.

Wigan Warriors Community Foundation

Wigan Warriors’ official charity that uses the power of sport and Rugby League to make a difference to people’s lives.

Leigh Community Trust

Leigh Community Trust is a thriving community focused charity that has harnessed the power of sport and its affiliation to the local professional sports club to use as a means of both personal and community development and cohesion. They aim to enhance and support the community by creating a stronger and safer place, increased educational attainment, improved physical and mental wellbeing and the promotion of social inclusion for the public benefit by preventing people from becoming excluded, relieving the needs of those marginalised and assisting them to integrate back into society.

Wigan 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 Wigan, the SGOs are Cathy Robinson and Sharon Walls.

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.