Place partnership: Rochdale

Place Partner Mission

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

Our mission has been to enable active lives for all by reducing inactivity and health inequalities. We’ve looked to do this by working together with people, communities and organisations to create long lasting change.

Key learnings (2019-24)

Through targeted work in places like Milkstone and Deeplish, Rochdale have demonstrated the importance and impact of engagement and collaboration at both strategic and community level.

The three key achievements in Rochdale over the first phase of this work were:

1. Getting physical activity included onto agendas across sectors both at a strategic and operational level
2. Community engagement as highlighted through the redevelopment of Stonyfield Park
3. Initiatives aimed at identifying and addressing inequalities

Physical activity across sectors 

Using Place Partner principles, the Rochdale team worked to raise the profile and understanding of how physical activity can support other agendas at both an operational and strategic level. This involved working together with new partners within the system.

One example of this is the Talk English programme, where the Place Partner team worked together with the Work, Health and Skills team. The Talk English programme, supports adults who have low levels of spoken English and through the new connection, the team were able to add conversations about health and physical activity to the programme. This initial success led to an ongoing partnership, with the Place Partner team offering career development opportunities.

At a strategic and governance level the team also had numerous successes in ensuring that physical activity is embedded across different agendas. For example the Climate Co-operators group have identified moving more and increasing active travel as key aims. Whilst the Physical Activity & Healthy Weight Steering Group has taken on the Place Partner principles. This group has brought together key stakeholders and is driving forward the physical activity agenda across the council.

Community engagement

Community engagement and activation is seen as the key to Place Partnership working. This way of working in Rochdale is exemplified through their work in Stonyfield Park.

The redevelopment of Stonyfield Park has been a focus of the Place teams work. Once a disused space, the team worked with residents to turn it into a loved community asset. This work was underpinned by building relationships with residents, being flexible and cross-sector partnership working. The initial goal was building trusting relationships with the local community and there has now been long-term engagement with the local community. The team is now shifting power to the community and there is now a “Friends of Stoneyfield Park”. Through collaboration with other VCSE groups including Groundworks who has identified the park as a ‘Green Hub project’, the "friends of" now drives the park’s development forward.

The energy around this work has also helped to attract new partners. These include local councillors, the Environmental Management team, and charities and volunteer groups, all who have brought new opportunities to help support the park’s ongoing transformation.

Click here to read more about Stoneyfield Parks journey

Addressing inequalities

Addressing inequalities within the system and community has always been at the heart of Rochdale’s Place Partner work.

An example of this is the Community Investment Fund (CiF). This fund targeted those facing the greatest barriers to physical activity and had a focus of building relationships. One example is Newbold Community Garden project. Through the initial engagement with a community champion, a derelict piece of land is now being developed into a community garden. Applying for the CiF and being successful, built up the skills and confidence of the community champion. Using these new skills the champion felt confident to apply for more funding in order to complete and build on the project. To read more about the Newbold project please see the case study.

An example of tackling inequalities at a system level is Your Trust's work in leisure centres. YourTrust identified gaps within their existing EDI polices and offer for disabled people. Once identified, the team have implemented a number of changes to make their services more inclusive. Examples of this include:

• Inclusion awareness training and to frontline staff
• Creating access guides and easy read policies
• Creating a bespoke inclusive activity programme for those unable to participate in mainstream classes

GM Moving Podcast

Sarah Shard, Local Pilot Lead for Rochdale, featured in the second series of The GM Moving Podcast to share the approach they've taken in Rochdale, the learnings and what's next.

The fourth episode of the series was released on Thursday 1 September 2022.

“We did some ladies only cycling sessions, we linked in with six different partners and it probably took us six months to get that up and running. Those ladies voices haven't been heard before and we really started to link in to the community and spoke to them... We've had 80 ladies take part in the last couple of months.”

Full transcript of the episode can be found here.

The episode can be listen to below or wherever you normally get your podcasts from.

Click here to learn about Rochdale's deepening plans