Place partners: Bury

Place Partners is a Sport England funded programme that uses a place-based behaviour change approach to create sustainable change in physical activity levels.

Initially, Bury utilised research and insight to create a 12-month plan, starting from April 2019; this can be viewed here.

Bury have taken two distinct approaches with the place partner work:

• A place-based approach was taken in Radcliffe where a Local Pilot Officer worked directly with the community on strengthening community relationships, and building on community assets.
• A whole system approach working with Public Health and Bury PCNs to address wider health inequalities, this resulted in Bury’s Wellness Strategy

The Place Partners work in Bury is supported by borough-wide partners who sit on the steering group, this is made up of: Bury Council (Public Health, Learning and Education, and Working Well), various community leaders and groups and local voluntary organisation Bury VCFA. Groups and individual can attend the bi-monthly meeting with an idea, or an ask on how we can make it easier for people to move more in Bury.

The Place Partner principles have allowed Bury to approach projects in a different way.

One example of working differently and across the system is through the development of a Play Streets application. Play Streets is an initiative which supports residents to legally close their street to traffic, creating a safe space for families and residents to bring the community together and play.

To enable effective roll out of “Play Streets” the Live Well Service, Transport and Highways along with residents have been creating a new, user-friendly application, to allow the public to apply for their street to become a 'Play Street'. The collaboration was successful thanks to time spent building relationships with local residents, understanding what matters to them and supporting the community to have ownership of decisions and initiatives in their local area.

A current and ongoing example of place-based working in Bury is the Radcliffe walks, six routes have been co-produced and designed with the community that link up the town centre, the canal, the Outwood trail, local schools, and food banks. The routes will be marked out with floor markers for residents to use as guidance and can be picked up as a start or finish from anywhere across the six routes.

To add yourself as a Bury Moving partner or find more information about the place partners work in Bury contact: [email protected]

The GM Moving Podcast

Episode 12 of the GM Moving podcast released in October 2022 focused on Bury's place partners work

Host Eve Holt Speaks to Jackie Veal the place partner lead in Bury about how to engage communities better to be physically active. 

The full transcript for the podcast can be found here.

The Podcast can be listened to here, or found on Spotify or Apple podcasts.