London Sport recently brought together partners from across the capital for an Active Environments Action Planning Day, focused on a simple question: how can London’s spaces and places help more people become active?
London faces its own set of challenges. Space is limited, many facilities are under pressure and opportunities to be active are not equally available across the city. With London’s population continuing to grow, these pressures are only likely to increase.
No single organisation can solve this alone. The event brought together local authority leisure leads, leisure operators, landowners, community organisations, policymakers, planners, architects, developers and regeneration professionals. Each had a different perspective on how London’s spaces are planned, managed and used.
In the months before the event, London Sport gathered evidence across three areas: dedicated sport and physical activity facilities, non-traditional spaces and active design.
This meant looking at the pressures facing leisure centres, swimming pools and playing fields, alongside the potential of places such as libraries, community halls and empty retail units. It also meant considering how streets, neighbourhoods and new developments can make walking, cycling and everyday movement easier.
The day was designed to be practical. During the morning, attendees worked in groups to explore the evidence, identify the biggest challenges and discuss where change might be possible. In the afternoon, the groups came together to look at the links between the different areas and where partners could make the most progress by working together.
One of the clearest takeaways was the need to make better use of the space London already has.
New facilities will still be needed, but London cannot rely on new development alone. Existing facilities and other local spaces could support much more activity if barriers around cost, access, ownership and coordination can be addressed.
The event also showed the value of bringing people from different sectors into the same room. Different organisations will not always agree on the priorities or the solutions, but those discussions help build a clearer picture of where action is both needed and realistic.
The findings will now be reviewed and shared with attendees. London Sport will then work with partners to agree a smaller set of priorities and develop a shared action plan. This will identify practical ideas to test before partners begin delivering the plan together from 2027.
