Greater Manchester is transforming its streets to encourage people to walk or cycle rather than drive. Olympian Chris Boardman is leading a £160m investment in cycling infrastructure Stockport is the most advanced in this regard: we have a dedicated pedestrian and cycling bridge planned that goes over one of the main roads. There’s some really innovative thinking starting to take place when it comes to good design around public access and facilities. We’ve also suggested a policy, through Transport for the North, that every transport-related project – be it road, rail or tram – should have cycling and walking provision built in. One slight challenge is that, outside London, we don’t have powers to penalise pavement parking in the same way. And it’s unbelievable how big an issue this is in terms of the restriction it places on older and disabled people and young parents with pushchairs. It really limits people’s mobility because they just can’t get out and about. There’s a lot of thinking going on around these issues. We’re also trying to knit these challenges into the broader regeneration agenda around town centres. We’re working to move the burden of development away from green space and back to town centres, recognising that they won’t be predominantly retail centres any more and that they need to be more residentially-focused, with more high-density properties. That’s where we’re going from a policy point of view, and Chris Boardman has then come in with a wide range of exciting ideas that can knit some of this together. 36
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What are the other key areas of focus? Our target is for three-quarters of the population to be active by 2025, and the biggest stimulus to get us toward this could be social prescribing [doctors prescribing exercise]. It could be the best vehicle to move the numbers. We have devolution here with regard to the health service, so we potentially have more opportunity than anywhere else in the UK to make social prescribing part of the GP offer [ie, medical interventions offered by the UK government’s National Health Service (NHS)]. What I mean by this is, can we get to a point where exercise referral – linked to a full package of nutritional advice and counselling – is the default option as a starting point, rather than us turning immediately to medication? I’d like to think the 21st century NHS would offer lifestyle support before it offers anti-depressants or medication. The Daily Mile is a great programme, but obviously it only touches a certain number of people. If physical activity was placed at the heart of primary care, we’d be in a different league in terms of health. Just an example of that might be building on the Parkrun principle. Could we encourage a parkwalk? Could we create a culture of collective physical activity in our different localities? If Parkrun is – let’s say, 9.00am on a Saturday morning – could we do a parkwalk at