Trafford Moving: Tackling inequalities through placemaking

This article examines placemaking's role in tackling health inequalities by speaking with Trafford Council to understand their approach to helping communities participate in more physical activity and supporting them out of poverty.

In England, planning and public health have a long and entwined history.

In the mid-19th century, doctor John Snow applied data science to trace the origin of a cholera outbreak in London. His work led to redesigning the city’s water system and the first Public Health Act in 1848. Disease epidemics were attributed to overcrowded housing and poor water and air quality caused by rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. Ebenezer Howard’s Garden City movement sought a higher quality of life by balancing the benefits of living in the countryside with those of the city. Slum clearance programmes and the New Towns movement were driven by a desire to provide healthier environments for communities affected by devastation and disease. Modernism's mid-20th-century architectural style explicitly sought to deliver healthier places through light, ventilation, and access to green spaces.

The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) sets goals for the English planning system and says the planning system should meet three interdependent economic, social, and environmental objectives. Under the social objective, the NPPF states¹ that the planning system should support “strong, vibrant and healthy communities… by fostering well-designed, beautiful and safe places… that support communities’ health, social and cultural well-being.”

Physical inactivity, defined in this article as less than 30 minutes of activity a week, is associated with 1 in 6 deaths in the UK. Inactive children are more likely to be overweight and go on to be inactive as adults. Inactive adults are more likely to develop diabetes or cancer, suffer a heart attack or be at risk from mental health issues. As well as the health impacts, inactivity costs the UK £7.4 billion annually² and affects productivity and attainment.

Sport England’s Active Lives Survey monitors physical activity levels in England. The survey data shows that inactivity rates are higher in certain groups of the population, including people from low socio-economic groups, children and young people aged 5-16, women and girls, older adults aged 75+, ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities and long-term conditions.

In Trafford, this varies not only by demography but also by where people live, demonstrating the strong link between health and place. According to the Trafford Council website³, nearly 40% of adults in the most deprived parts of the borough are physically inactive, whereas in the least deprived places, it is 20%. For children, 62% are not meeting the guidelines for weekly activity in the most deprived areas, compared to 54% in the least deprived areas.

Trafford Moving, a partnership of organisations involved in delivering sport and physical activity in Trafford, aims to address these inequalities by supporting people to engage in physical activity in areas with high levels of inactivity.

I spoke with John Brady, Sport & Physical Activity Relationship Manager, and Ali Ulhaq, Business Analyst, at Trafford Council, who are part of the project delivery team working with the public health team leading the work on addressing health inequalities and inactivity in Trafford. They explained that as part of their Leisure Investment Programme, Trafford Council is taking a whole system, place-based approach towards refurbishing its leisure centres, offering a variety of activities tailored to residents’ needs to ensure that they are not only used by the local communities but are also embedded in them.

Aligned with this is the council’s strategy for Partington, which saw Trafford Council successfully bid for £18.2 million of Levelling Up funding. This funding will be used for the redevelopment of Partington Sports Village, including the leisure centre, to bring community services into the Sports Village itself.

As part of this project, there will also be investment in the adjacent playing fields at Cross Lane Park to provide a new trail around the park, an outdoor gym, a BMX pump track, a 3G sports pitch, and renovated changing rooms. Crucially, the leisure centre will become home to mental health outreach, employment and skills advice - bringing essential services to local people. John Brady, at Trafford Council, said the project would build on what is there already by providing a fantastic 21st-century leisure hub for the whole community to enjoy.

The whole systems approach that the council is taking to this work has resulted in them working more closely with local organisations such as Friends of the Park groups.

These organisations support the project in different ways, for example, through community-building events and tree-planting schemes.

Investment from the Government’s Levelling Up Fund has enabled the project to get off the ground. One of the key challenges is the inflationary pressures on the cost of materials, which have limited the ability for the project to be creative beyond the original scope of the plans. However, additional funding streams are being sought.

John also spoke passionately about ‘sparkle people’, members of the community who are leading the way in building excitement about the project and helping to get buy-in from residents.

By proactively going out into the community via events with young people at schools and with older people at residential centres, drop-in sessions, online surveys and social media, the team at Trafford Council have successfully engaged with residents to input into the project. Ali and John explained that residents had raised issues they hadn’t considered, including highway safety, lighting, specific safety for women and girls, antisocial behaviour, and the protection and maintenance of new assets. When I spoke to Ali and John, their team was preparing for another round of public engagement, and there was a strong feeling that this consistent engagement was starting to build up trust and generating deeper insights that were informing and strengthening the design and delivery of the project.

A planning application for the Leisure Centre refurbishment is due to be submitted in Spring 2024, with works due to end in 2026.

Councillor Cath Hynes, Trafford Council’s Executive Member for Leisure, Arts, Culture and Heritage, said she was excited about the opportunities created by the Levelling Up funding in the area:

"This development gives us the opportunity to significantly improve the health and wellbeing offer for residents in Partington and the surrounding area. The development will result in more people taking part in physical (sporting and leisure) activities and ties in with our priorities of reducing health inequalities and supporting people out of poverty."

As Trafford Council has demonstrated, it takes a cross-cutting, evidence and place-based approach to address health inequality at a local level, requiring clear leadership and a long-term commitment.

Officers must find their ‘sparkle people’ to help build relationships with the wider community who can inspire and guide officers through the process. If anything, COVID-19 has demonstrated that tackling health inequality in places is urgent, and it is our sector’s responsibility to get this right.