Thomas Gadd Photography

We believe that when it comes to the needs and aspirations of a community, nobody will know this better than the brilliant, dedicated people who have made their lives there. By listening, collaborating and harnessing the enthusiasm and expertise at the heart of each community, we can build better places across England and support more people to be active.

Our work involves making changes across a whole system, including Active Partnerships, local government, the health service, the community and voluntary sector, transport and housing sectors. Together, we work to understand the lived experience of that community and co-design activities with the communities themselves. Partners are encouraged to find solutions that help people to move more – including changes to local policies across multiple sectors, as well as combining resources to create new opportunities.

This place-based approach is evolving all the time. We still don’t have all the answers and that’s OK. Every day we’re learning more about the ways in which we can work together to have the maximum impact in local communities. Sheffield Hallam University, as our national evaluation and learning partner, is helping us to really understand the impact of this work. We then share all those insights, best practice examples and learning at a national level alongside our local place partners.

This is a long-term shift in how we work – led by local voices, shaped by lived experience and focused on changing systems to ensure everyone has equal access to getting active. By investing deeply, listening carefully and working together, we’re transforming the conditions that enable opportunities to be active – a national movement, powered locally.

photo: Beyond Empower

Communities must be in the driving seat if we’re to achieve any meaningful change. For too long people have been done to, rather than with, which has failed to deliver the outcomes needed.

However, over time, the true meaning of the place-based approach seems to have become distorted. Many interpret the approach as everything must come from within that one community from insights to finding and implementing solutions. From my experience, what often happens is that one issue – usually the most vocal concern in the room – gets prioritised, even if it’s not the greatest challenge the community faces.

No single community can be expected to have all the answers. The idea that every solution must come solely from local sources can be limiting, especially when there’s a lack of resources, capacity, or expertise there to address challenges. We need to recognise that national data, alongside local insights, can offer a valuable perspective on what works elsewhere and which solutions have already been tested and refined.

Rather than seeing this as a deviation from place-based principles, I believe this is part of an evolving understanding of how change happens. It’s about creating a framework where communities have the opportunity to partner with external experts, organisations and even other communities who have dealt with similar challenges.

This collaboration should be seen as an asset, not a threat to local ownership. Communities should be empowered to drive change, but they shouldn’t feel that they have to shoulder every challenge alone, especially when solutions already exist elsewhere and could be adapted to fit local needs.

When we focus on what will actually serve the community’s best interests, we open up a world of possibilities.

Place-based working is still in its infancy and the more we encourage debate and discussion on how we tackle the deep-seated inequalities in activity the better.

For more than 40 years, our traditional approaches to encouraging some people to become more active have failed. Inequality now is much the same as it was when I first helped establish sports development in the early 1980s. We now understand that the reasons for exclusion are complex, are often different in different places and one size does not fit all.

Communities usually know how things could be made better, if only they were asked. But even consultation doesn’t always work because we do it in a way that still excludes, or we end up listening to only the loud voices. When nothing changes as a result we further bake in the exclusion, along with a huge lack of trust.

Co-production – attempting to develop services with communities, rather than for them – is the best way of avoiding this scenario. This approach is prevalent in many of the Sport England Local Delivery Pilots and Street Games also uses this approach by engaging with locally trusted organisations who work with excluded communities.

If some communities lack the capacity to engage with co-production, I think the solution is to build the capacity to engage better. Many community development organisations, such as the Active Wellbeing Society in Birmingham, have been successful in empowering communities to become more active citizens. This provides a real opportunity to finally turn the dial and work differently as a sector if we’re prepared to learn, share and collaborate better.

photo: 4Global

Effective use of data is key to unlocking the potential of the place-based approach. Data is not only a by-product of place-based working, but a vital lever to ensure that inclusive participation efforts are intentional, responsive and scalable. When harnessed strategically, data empowers both communities and systems to learn, adapt and sustain meaningful change.

High-quality data allows stakeholders to identify where inequalities in participation exist, who is being excluded and why barriers persist. Disaggregated data – considering factors such as ethnicity, disability, gender, socioeconomic status and geography – enables targeted interventions that reflect the lived realities of communities. This allows delivery partners to make evidence-informed decisions about where to focus resources, how to design culturally-relevant programmes, and adapt delivery to maximise inclusion.

Data also plays a critical role in building accountability and trust: when communities see that insights gathered from their experiences are being used to shape services and measure progress, it strengthens local ownership and transparency.

Aggregated insights from multiple place-based initiatives can highlight common patterns, systemic barriers and successful approaches that are transferable across regions. This shared intelligence helps national bodies, funders and policymakers to better align strategies, make informed investment decisions and advocate for structural change that supports long-term, equitable participation growth.

Investing in shared data infrastructure – including interoperable systems, common indicators and evaluation frameworks – helps cross-sector partners collaborate more effectively. As health, education and social care systems increasingly recognise the role of physical activity in delivering societal outcomes, the ability to demonstrate cross-cutting impact through integrated data becomes even more valuable.

photo: Go TOgether

The place-based approach turns professionals into facilitators rather than deliverers of top-down solutions. The process is much more than consultation – it’s about co-producing decisions and letting communities take charge of shaping their own future. This shift can disrupt traditional procurement models and requires leaders to embrace uncertainty and relinquish control, welcoming the messiness of community-led change.

Ultimately, place-based approaches are as much about investing in relationships that create the foundation for future collaboration rather than simply addressing immediate challenges.

Facilitators must strike a delicate balance between guiding change and ensuring communities don’t become stuck without progress. Sometimes, communities need to be connected to ideas beyond their own context, via inspiration rather than imposing external solutions.

These relational approaches take time, with action often delayed. While they are more sustainable, they don’t align neatly with election cycles or financial years, and the work tends to be underpaid, making it difficult to retain skilled people. This can lead to the approach being dismissed as ineffective.

To improve place-based approaches, we must prioritise ongoing investment in learning; not through top-down evaluations, but by genuinely co-producing knowledge that enables stakeholders to learn together. This approach requires relational leadership and radical trust. We must invest in building relationships before they are needed, so when challenges arise, there is already a foundation of trust and collaboration.