Sport England is
setting a series of ambitious targets to help us realise our vision of a more
active nation for everyone.
By 2020, it wants
to:
- Increase the numbers of
people in England who are regularly active by 500,000 nationally
- Increase the numbers of women
who are regularly active by 250,000 nationally
- Increase the numbers of
people from lower socio-economic groups who are more active by 100,000
(within targeted locations).
Sport England's
research shows how challenging it can be for people to get into sport and
physical activity in the first place, and once they have, to stay active.
It will be
using Active Lives data
to measure progress towards these targets, with the next release in March
giving it a first chance to compare year-on-year figures.
People who Sport
England describe as ‘active’ do 150 minutes or more of moderate intensity
activity per week.
As well as working
towards these new targets the organisation's wider work to build an active
nation is not slowing down.
It is committed to
supporting the 27 million people who are already active by marking sure they
have the right facilities, activities and mixture of opportunities.
Sport England Chair
Nick Bitel said: “The government’s Sporting Future strategy set out a big
vision to create a more active nation for all. Sport England and the whole
sport sector is rising to the challenge and this is reflected in the ambitious
targets we're announcing.
“We're working
towards something that has never been achieved before. We're changing
long-term, deep-rooted behaviour around sport and physical activity across the
population.
“There's no
blueprint to do this and achieving success will require the sector to think and
operate very differently, engage with people that it has never really engaged
with before, and put those people, and their needs, at the heart of everything.
“By investing in new
ways of working, working with a broad range of partners, embracing innovation
and constantly learning from what we do, we aim to prove that change in
activity levels across the whole population is possible – and that everyone can
benefit from sport and physical activity.”
