Our Locality Approach to creating Active Communities
Across the county, we have huge variations in landscape and population. Each district shows significant differences in demographics, income levels, health and more. It is essential to us that our approach to enabling communities to experience the benefits of a healthy and active life is tailored to the unique circumstances of each district within Norfolk. This is what we refer to as our locality approach.
This approach allows us to work collaboratively with local government and health and social care to create dedicated capacity in each local authority district. It is our belief that this capacity will drive the development and implementation of local plans to improve lives through physical activity and sport.
Impact Summary and Results
Over the last 12 months, we have focussed on 4 key priority areas. These are as follows:
- Strengthening place-based relationships
- Funding distribution across Norfolk counties
- Implementing physical activity frameworks in place
- Building capacity in place to improve physical activity provision
Find out more about each of these priority areas and the progress we’ve made below.
Our Active Communities Officers continue to build strong place-based relationships that support their work and the work of key partners across the County. Partners include District Council departments, Norfolk County Council, Public Health, NHS, Police, Multi-faith organisations, VCSE organisations, physical activity providers and many more. The Active Community Officer role helps to bridge the gap between these organisations and supports weaving physical activity into policy, strategy, and delivery across a breadth of partners.
To order to support the bespoke Framework for Action in each place, the Active Communities team can access a series of funding pots that provide much needed funds. During 2024/2025, the team leveraged £2,959,098 via the Big Norfolk Holiday Fun programme, Opening Schools Facilities, Active NoW and Health and Wellbeing Partnership grants. This funding has a direct impact on local communities and is specifically tailored to meet local need.
Within the 53 places Sport England announced in 2024-25 for expanding their Place Partnership work, King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, and Great Yarmouth were within the first phase to receive investment. So far this has secured £173,166 across both places.
Stronger relationships and a greater understanding of each place has given the Active Communities team the opportunity to design bespoke interventions for each of the Districts in the County. These ‘Framework for Action’ documents set out the key priorities in each place based on objective evidence and subjective experience from the people that live and work there. These priorities allow Active Norfolk to focus its work on where physical activity can be best used as a tool to improve outcomes for residents. Underpinning each Framework for Action is a clear action plan that will guide Active Norfolk’s work for the future.
Our Active Communities team have enabled improved understanding of physical activity provision in place, helping to identify gaps and awareness of existing projects. They have supported the development of community programmes on offer, and created better connections between organisations and communities; with a particular focus on those facing inequalities.
Utilising Active Norfolk’s knowledge, experience and networks provide added value to our work and help us to form a coordinated approach to tackling physical activity and health challenges within our communities."
"The locality officer role has been very successful in Norwich. There are clear benefits of this collaborative and joined up way of working which is proving more productive in achieving our strategic goals."
