Outdoor recreation's place in Government's strategy for an active nation

Hannah Dobbin, Policy Adviser, reflects on the successful integration of outdoor recreation in to the Government's new sports strategy.

Having worked on outdoor recreation for over a year now, one of my first word searches on Sporting Future: A New Strategy for an Active Nation was for this and although it doesn’t have its own theme, it’s pleasing to see it does have a noticeable place. James Allen, our Head of Policy, provides an overview of the Government’s new sport strategy in his blog but here I will focus on outdoor recreation.

Over the past year we’ve been working with the Outdoor Industries Association, members and partners on what could be included in a national outdoor recreation strategy. While completing this work for the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Government announced plans for a new sport strategy. Although this scuppered plans for a separate outdoor recreation strategy for England, it was an opportunity to place being active in the natural environment within Government’s overarching approach to sport and physical activity.

It’s great to see that our Reconomics report is referenced in the strategy and that the benefits of the UK’s natural assets both in terms of getting people active but also to the economy are recognised.

Our report on a national outdoor recreation strategy clearly set out the need for joined-up working across Government. This is reflected well within Sporting Future (p25) with commitment for DCMS and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to continue to work together to ensure the potential of our natural capital to meet physical activity needs is met. It also recognises the role of other departments including Department for Transport (DfT) and Department for Communities and Local Government.

More specifically, Sporting Future states that:
•tGovernment will track levels of engagement in outdoors activity through the new Active Lives survey (replacing APS) and explore how to enhance the compatibility of data from Active Lives and the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) to deepen understanding behaviours (p24)
•tKey performance indicators for more people getting active include: KPI 3 – Increase in the percentage of adults utilising outdoor space for exercise/ health reasons (MENE survey) (p78)

Importantly, Government recognises that people can be active in both urban and rural spaces. This reflects conversations we’ve had in that ‘the outdoors’ is not only our great national parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty but also the open spaces near to people wherever they live. Building on this, Government states that ‘when considering future investment in infrastructure, Sport England will balance the need for – an existing provision of – all spaces, not just built facilities’ (p61).

Walking and cycling get notable mentions although more detail will follow in the Childhood Obesity Strategy and the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy which are due to be published next year by the Department of Health and DfT respectively (p27). Furthermore:

•tGovernment will broaden Sport England’s role from measuring and supporting sport to measuring and supporting both sport and certain kinds of physical activity, including cycling, dancing and walking. Details of activities which can be subject to Sport England measurement and support will be included in Sport England’s strategy published in 2016 (p28)

In addition, responsibility for the Adventure Activities Licencing Association is likely to move from the Department for Work and Pensions to DCMS and the organisation will be reformed to make its focus the active encouragement of greater levels of outdoor activity, beyond simply its licensing (p25). It will be interesting to see more detail on this and consider implications for our members and service providers.

More widely, outdoor recreation can contribute to other key themes within the strategy including getting the ‘inactive moving’ and improving people’s mental health and wellbeing. The Alliance will continue to work with partners in these areas.

There is a lot in the new sports strategy and as ever with national strategies, more detail will follow. But this is a positive start in terms of outdoor recreation and will hopefully open doors to further opportunities to work with Government to protect our natural environment and enable even more high-quality opportunities for everyone to be active outdoors.

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