Somerset Moves is our system wide, multi-agency strategy for the development of physical activity and sport across Somerset.

Everyone has a role to play in Somerset Moves; people, communities, and organisations, from every sector and place across the county, pulling together with a shared goal to help move more and improve their lives in the process.

The strategy has been shaped by people's ideas from online conversations, virtual workshops, and evidence of what helps people to be active.

It sets out what we believe we need to do in Somerset to get people moving more, by building activity and more movement into daily life. Helping people move a little more, making it easier to be active, to take part in sport, and a natural part of how we all live, travel, work and play in Somerset.

Being active is so important for our physical and mental fitness, never more so than during a pandemic. In Somerset we still have nearly a quarter of our adult population who are inactive and activity levels for children and young people have also dropped significantly over the past year. Lack of confidence, time pressures, ill health plus a thousand other things can make the decision to be active harder for some than others.

We have spent the last 12 months developing a system wide, multi-agency strategy for physical activity and sport in Somerset. As we look to respond to new emerging national and local contexts to ensure that together we keep creating the conditions for activity levels to grow and particularly to address the barriers that prevent people from living active lives. The new strategy will provide the opportunity to respond to these changes, particularly those occurring in health and social care, in local government, and the new 10-year vision for sport and physical activity set out recently by Sport England.

September Launch Event

After a fantastic launch at the end of September 2022, we have worked hard behind the scenes to ensure we can include all the amazing energy, ideas and collaboration positively into the implementation of Somerset Moves in the coming years. We are keen to try something different with the implementation of our pillars of the strategy and this has taken a little bit of thought and reflection.

Pillar Meetings

We delivered 2 phases of online pillar meetings throughout January and February 2023 and May and June 2023, to continue the positivity and connecting of our eco system by opening the pillars to everyone who wished to attend and contribute.

Each pillar had a relevant and informed 15 minute speaker, (local or national) for some joint learning / increased awareness / thought provoking aspects of the pillar, questions and reflections from the talk and then an hour discussing the implementation (the what and the how for the pillars).