‘Now is our time’ - New vision to improve fitness of Peterborough residents post-pandemic

Outlining plans to help the city ‘bounce back’ from lockdown, senior city council executive Adrian Chapman told the Peterborough Telegraph that “now is our time” to revamp services and capitalise on goodwill towards supporting the NHS.

In an exclusive interview with the PT, Mr Chapman, service director for communities, Jamie Fenton, partnership manager for culture, sport and leisure, and Cllr Steve Allen, cabinet member for housing, culture and recreation outlined plans to:

. Create a new website highlighting activities at the city’s parks

. Improve cycling and walking facilities

. ‘Repurpose’ community assets for fitness activities

. Invest in outdoor tennis and table tennis facilities

. Potentially introduce public health activities at gyms.

The new Active Lifestyles and Sport Strategy will be a refresh of an existing one agreed 18 months ago and will seek to build on a new found desire among many to improve their fitness due to the pandemic.

It is expected to be agreed by the end of the summer with funding bids then submitted to Sport England.

Mr Chapman said: “We have a narrow window of opportunity here to really build on the enthusiasm of our population to support our NHS system and social care partners and look after each other well, but also really deal with our health inequalities which we know exist within all communities across the UK.

“There is no time like the present and you will see some pace happening behind this work. We recognise that now is our time.”

Cllr Allen said improving health outcomes will be focused on both physical and mental needs.

He explained: “It’s important we use sport centres, community centres and places where people interact, not only for sport and exercise but for the interaction, because I think that very much has an overbearing effect on mental health.

“Being Covid safe people will need to get out there (after lockdown) and use sport as a way out of their hum-drum and keeping fit in body and in mind.

“That’s why we want to make sure sports centres and community centres offer more than just the exercise element.

“We need to develop that strategy and that’s part of what we’re doing with the review.”

Ideas put forward so far include more online fitness classes and repurposing community centres which are currently being transferred from the council to third parties.

“There are lots of things you can do with community centres rather than just have bingo,” Cllr Allen added.

“There are lots of ways you can serve your communities and embrace all age groups - from mother and baby to the old folks. They can be active lifestyle orientated.”

Mr Fenton said the refreshed strategy will help “keep up with people’s changing habits and demands”.

He added: “We know in the last 10 to 11 months people have a new outlook on what physical activity looks like, whether that’s walking, jogging, biking - whatever it may be outside.

“The strategy will refresh how we look at our stakeholders and how physical activity is driven.

“Vivacity (which previously ran city leisure facilities) have great assets. We now need to develop an outside activity and digital offer for the activity as well.”

New outdoor table tennis tables are due to be installed in the near future, while the council is working with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) to improve tennis courts at parks.

Another key concept is a new Peterborough Parks website to highlight the “little hidden gems we’ve got throughout the city”.

Mr Fenton explained: “The idea of the website is when you go onto it, if you put in an activity - for example walking the dog or a play area - it will take you to the best parks where those activities are available and there will be all the points of interest in the park loaded into that as well.

“We can promote parkrun, we can put on any events going on for young people and older people and just really connect everything up in one.

“We’ve got key stakeholders working on that. Once we get that and market that it will be a really useful tool, especially when we start being released again so we can actually get out and about.”

Around 42 per cent of Peterborough residents are said to not be meeting the chief medical officer’s recommendation of 150 minutes of exercise a week, a “high, alarming figure,” according to Mr Fenton.

Options to improve this could be introducing incentives, Mr Chapman said.

He continued: “If we can provide incentives - it might be through discounts, but it might also be through rewards or sheer recognition of achievement - that’s the sort of thing that motivates people and keeps people going.”

Using leisure centres as community hubs, with public health activity taking place there, is another idea, but at the heart of the plans is a leap towards more walking and cycling.

Mr Chapman said: “We have some amazing green spaces and rural areas which we can bring into play here and get people out and active in their own time without any cost to them.”

The plans will include a new bridge over the Embankment linking the new university and Fletton Quays development, as well as improvements to the Green Wheel - the 45 mile cycle route which runs around Peterborough’s perimeter.

“Connectivity of cycle access across the city is very important,” Cllr Allen said.

“I’m a big believer personally - and I’m sure there are other views in the administration - that the Green Wheel should be extended.

“It needs better maintenance and we need to interlink our villages and townships with the city centre.

“And we need to look holistically at how cycling is improved and the availability of cycling.”

Challenged over the council’s commitment to cycling after it reversed plans to introduce pop-up cycle lanes in Cowgate and Broadway following complaints from business owners, Cllr Allen replied: “I’m not too keen on putting up bollards and interrupting the flow of traffic in our city. I think we need to look at in a much broader way, but I do have sympathy for the cycling lobby to provide wider access into the city.”

The new framework will be put together by a range of stakeholders, including Peterborough Ltd - a council run body which took over leisure facilities after Vivacity’s financial demise due to the pandemic - Living Sport, Nene Park Trust, sustainable transport charity Sustrans, the city’s disability forum and senior figures in public health and education.

It will seek to build on plans for a new Olympic-standard climbing wall at Ferry Meadows and sports and leisure facilities both in Werrington and to replace the existing Regional Fitness and Swimming Centre in Bishop’s Road.

Cllr Allen added: “A lot of people are doing exercise to escape from hum-drum and that behavioural change will perhaps lead them on to new habits. We want to put the framework in place to allow that to happen at a greater take-up.”