How Warrington got to be so active!

WARRINGTON’S achievement, in becoming the most active borough in the North West, is due to a number of local organisations working together to increase the number of people taking part in sport.
The town’s biggest provider of sport and leisure activities is, however, LiveWire, which last year provided 4,233 hours of sports activity across 2,498 sessions through their Active LiveWire team.
Emma Hutchinson, managing director of LiveWire, said: “It’s fantastic that Warrington has topped the regional chart for the first time following significant increases in adult participation.
“This builds on the consistently strong performance we have seen in participation among young people for some time.
“Becoming the most active local authority in the region was one of the headline aims of our last business plan, and it is testament to the hard work of staff at LiveWire and our partner organisations to have achieved this.”
The figures have been released by Sport England and also show that the Cheshire and Warrington sub-region was the second most active in the country.
They show that 43.1 per cent of over 16s in Warrington took part in at least 30 minutes of physical activity at least once a week – an increase of 7 per cent on last year.
It was also revealed that Warrington is the second best performing area in the region for junior sports participation with 42.9 per cent of 14-16 year olds taking part in at least 30 minutes of moderate, intensity sport each week.
The survey, which assesses every local authority in England, propels Warrington into 36th place nationally for over-16 participation and 43rd position for 14-16 years participation.
Nationally, the Active People Survey also showed that more people than ever are getting active. The number now stands at 15.97 million people over the age of 16 playing sport weekly.
That’s up 229,400 from 12 months ago and is 1.88 million more than when London won the right to host the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
The survey also revealed that there has been a surge in the number of women taking part in regular physical activity which has narrowed the gender gap between male and female participation from more than two million to 1.55 million.
In Warrington, LiveWire ran their own “This Girl Can” programme and supported 32 inactive females from across Warrington to take part in a range of activities such as horse riding, indoor wall climbing, archery and golf as well as tennis, running, trampoline classes and ladies only boxing.
Laura Akers was one of the women who took part in the 12 week programme. She said: “This Girl Can gave me opportunities to try sports that I would never have considered before such as water polo, cricket, tennis, archery and horse riding. It gave me the confidence to try new things and since taking part, I now lead a much more active lifestyle.”