Active Black Country set to expand work to increase activity levels

As we enter the first weeks of January, our team is busy progressing plans in conjunction with partners to empower more Black Country people to get active in 2025. With new funding possibilities to launch initiatives, allied with expansion of existing projects, it’s an exciting year in prospect.

At the heart of everything we do are the six pillars of our Creating an Active Black Country strategy, against which we measure progress and gauge impact through our monitoring, evaluation and learning reports.

2025 will be no different in this respect. What will be different are the fresh opportunities presented by place-based expansion work funded by Sport England.

We’ll be announcing further details in the next week. In the coming months, new appointments will also strengthen our team and allow us to ramp up efforts to increase activity levels in Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.

As ever, our key stakeholders and partners, including community organisations, are crucial to our mission to tackle the barriers that prevent people from being active across the region.

We aim to forge stronger relationships with existing partners and develop fresh collaborations with new ones to achieve our strategic objectives.

On the horizon is further work to expand our raft of water safety programmes and to widen the impact of our Get Out Get Active (GOGA) work. We will also launch a new Black Country-wide marketing campaign focussed on utilising our spaces and places to motivate people to be active.

In the first quarter of the year, we have a big focus on delivering Year 3 of the Opening Schools Facilities programme, including the participation of an additional 21 schools, to benefit schoolchildren and community users outside of curriculum time.

We know we can count on you, our partners, to assist us in this drive to deliver transformational change to maximise opportunities for people to lead more active lifestyles. We look forward to working together to advance our joint goals.

Ian Carey, CEO of Active Black Country