Place partnership: Manchester

Place Partner Mission

Since 2018 Manchester have been part of Greater Manchester’s Place Partnership with Sport England to build healthier, more active communities.

The partnership aims 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.

Key learnings (2019-24)

Manchester’s early work in had two key target audiences beyond the three agreed across Greater Manchester. These additional areas were adults with learning disabilities, and walking and cycling across the city. These areas of focus have helped shape the place teams work.

Cross sector working

Connecting to local partners and across sectors was key to Manchester’s approach. The place team spent time building new relationships and trust with partners. This ensured that place-based principles were embedded into shared areas of work. These foundations allowed the team reposition physical activity as a solution for tackling inequalities and improving health outcomes. Which in turn meant that physical activity was embedded across different agendas, including the city-wide Making Manchester Fairer strategy. 

Community engagement

Connection and engaging with existing community groups was identified as a core strand to Manchester’s place work. Through community engagement the team were able to build;

• Better community knowledge
• Community trust
• More connectivity within the system

To support these groups the place team provided support and mentoring to VCSE and community groups. This included wrap around support for CiFs, and training for place-based ways of working.

Through the test and learn approach, Manchester identified different community engagement models for each the four neighbourhoods. Although each model was adapted for each community, all models had the following;

• Encouraged flexible of ways of working
• Were shaped by the needs of each community
• Focused on building community leadership.

Successes from community engagement in hyperlocal work has now influenced the broader system. Examples of community engagement in action is seen in infrastructure projects city wide. A key example of this is the implementation and placement of the cities football hubs.  

Growth of walking and cycling

Walking  and cycling was identified as a key areas of focus for Manchester’s place team. This area of work was based on resident feedback. As residents identified walking and cycling as a the most likely way to provide opportunities to be physical activity. Since the start of the place partnership Manchester have had multiple successes both at a system and local level.

Manchester walking took a community sustainability approach. This included providing training for people who wish to become walk leaders. The aim of this is to build up a strong and sustainable community walking programme within the city. The training also provided an opportunity for the team to build up stronger relationships with the walk leaders. Which led to a new barrier being identified for informal walking groups in the form of an out-of-date parks policy. Once identified the place team were able to use this knowledge and work with the parks team to find a solution. The result was a change in policy. Allowing walking groups to meet in parks without £10million insurance requirement. The place team took this one step further and held a series of meetings to publicise this change in policy with the park teams.

Manchester have also had successes in policy changes within cycling at a local level and national level. By working closely with communities a barrier was identified within the ride leader programme. By leaning into the community knowledge, and stakeholder relationships the place team were able to influence changes. These changes were then implemented in future training programmes, making them more accessible. 

GM Moving Podcast

Episode six of the second series of the GM Moving podcast released in September 2022 looked at Manchester.

In this episode, host Eve Holt talks to Angela Martin and Stacy Partridge from Manchester Active on how the place partner work has helped build local relationships.

The full transcript of the podcast can be found here.

You can listen to the podcast here, or on Spotify or Apple podcasts 

Click here to read about Manchester's deepening plans