£7 million boost for Doncaster Get Moving project

The money will support four years of work by Doncaster Council’s Get Doncaster Moving project.

Doncaster was one of just 12 areas awarded Local Delivery Pilot (LDP) status by Sport England in 2017. Funding has also oc me from the National Lottery.

Since then, work has been undertaken to better understand the barriers people face to leading active lifestyles and putting more resources into areas in the borough where people find staying active is difficult.

Get Doncaster Moving helps to improve the health and wellbeing of residents, including making Active Community Grants to support-community driven projects and initiatives to support physical activity.

The project delivered 20,000 leaflets at the height of the pandemic to advise and encourage vulnerable residents on how to be physically active.

The funding secured over the next four years will further this work by supporting residents and communities to design and develop their own solutions to the barriers that get in the way of being active.

Walk through Doncaster history

These include providing greater access to dance opportunities, use of bikes or walking as methods of active travel and helping enhance Doncaster’s 15 major parks.

Central to all of this is talking to residents on the ways in which they can be physically active close to where they live.

Director of public health, Dr Rupert Suckling, said: “We know that a third of Doncaster residents currently do less than 30 minutes’ exercise a week.

"That number unfortunately rises to two-thirds of ‘inactive’ people in some of our most deprived communities and is something we want to help combat.

“The impacts of low participation in physical activity and sport are far reaching.

" Of course we all know the health benefits exercise brings but low participation in exercise also has negative effects on overall quality of life, economies and the environment.

“We want to resolve the very real barriers that people have to being physically active which can make it very hard for more people to lead an active lifestyle.”

More information: https://getdoncastermoving.org/about

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