GM Active aims to make booking a sports session easier

An ambitious data sharing scheme will give residents across Greater Manchester access to thousands of fitness classes and sports facilities at the touch of a button.

GM Active, which manages the bulk of public leisure facilities across the region, has pledged to open their session opportunity data by the end of 2019. This will enable residents to easily access more than 10,000 activities offered across Greater Manchester.

The announcement, which will be a UK first, comes after Sport England revealed that it’s more than twice as easy to book a holiday online as it is to book a sport or fitness class online.

GM Active hopes that by making it easier for residents to to find local opportunities to be active, it will lead to an increase in activity levels across the entire city-region.

It will also help tackle the misperception that there is a lack of good facilities in the area, after an independent survey conducted by Britain Thinks, on behalf of GM Moving, showed only a third (37%) of inactive residents in Greater Manchester believe they have good access to facilities.

In addition, two thirds (67%) of respondents said they want to be more active.

The ambitious scheme would see GM Active’s data shared, becoming the first regional collective to commit to the plan. They will join organisations such as British Cycling, England Netball and England Athletics, who have already opened their data.

The news comes as the Minister for Sport and Civil Society, Mims Davies, calls on the sport and physical activity sector to embrace the important role that digital innovation can play in getting the population more active. She challenged the sector to commit to the agenda, and open their opportunity data by the end of 2019 to help make it easier for people to be active.

Pete Burt, Chair of GM Active says: “Our ambition at GM Active is to change lives and get more people physically active. By opening our leisure session data it will make it easier for anyone to search over 10,000 classes, sessions and activities that are available every week to find the right solution at the right time and place for them.

“We are passionate about being the first region to enable this digital transformation for our 2.8m residents so we can reach our goal of 75% of our population being active. By opening up our data, campaigns like This Girl Can and Change for Life can signpost to tens of thousands of opportunities making it simple and easy for everyone to get moving in Greater Manchester delivering our vision of healthier and happier communities.”

 

 

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester said: “The innovative leadership shown by GM Active to be the first regional collective of leisure providers to commit to open their activity data cements our ambition to make Greater Manchester the most active city-region in the UK.

“Opening our leisure centre session data will put us ahead of the game and gives us a remarkable opportunity to innovate, to create a smart digital future fusing technology with communities and places.

“I don’t want Greater Manchester to be just a smart city – I want it to be the smartest city that improves health outcomes for people and changes lives which today’s commitment will help us achieve.”

By opening data it will be easier for health professionals to signpost to opportunities for their patients to move more. Physical activity in medical terms is often referred to as the ‘miracle drug’ to support improved health and wellbeing.

Sara Tomkins, Chief Executive GreaterSport says: “With our latest research showing that Greater Manchester residents want to be more active but don’t know how, this commitment could not come at a better time. Opening this data will make it as easy as booking an Uber or searching for a flight and will provide thousands of local opportunities for our residents to move more, helping people to become happier and healthier and support Greater Manchester to reach our 2 million moving ambition by 2021.”