£1m drive to trim number of fat families in Sandwell

Sandwell Council is bidding for funding from Sport England to get the scheme off the ground.

The project aims to increase the number of people participating in physical activity by increasing the range of sport sessions available.

It will also look at ways to make it easier for people to take part in activities close to where they live.

Director for public health Jyoti Atri said: "Currently 28.3 per cent of people 16 and over participate in 30 minutes of sport per week within Sandwell.

"This represents a five per cent increase over the past 12 months which is mainly accountable to the provision of new leisure facilities in the borough.

"These high levels of physical inactivity are a major contributing factor to more than a quarter of adults in Sandwell being obese and two thirds overweight.

"Nearly a quarter of children starting school are obese or overweight and by age eleven this doubles with a quarter leaving primary school classified as obese."

The council is applying for a grant of £250,000 from Sport England's Community Sport Activation Fund towards its Community Activity Network Programme, which will launch in July. This will be in addition to the £810,000 public health council funding. If the Sport England bid is not be successful then the project will still go ahead, however, less funding will be available for delivery of activity sessions per town.

During the two-year scheme, the authority will work will community groups and sports club to provide the activity sessions with the funding divided up between the borough's six towns.

It is the latest project aimed at making it easier for people to take up sport.

In March, council bosses approved a two-year extension to the borough's free swimming scheme, which will benefit thousands of youngsters.

Free swimming will be available at the new Wednesbury Leisure Centre when it opens later in the year.

It will continue to be offered at Haden Hill, Langley, Smethwick, Tipton and West Bromwich leisure centres. The scheme allows adults, who are Sandwell residents, aged 60 and over to swim without charge during public swimming sessions, for seven days per week before 1pm, all year round. While children and teenagers can swim for free during school holidays.

A total of £368,000 will spent on running the programme at the borough's leisure centres.

More than 16,000 children and adults have taken up the offer since it was first introduced in 2013.

The programme has led to a rise in visitor numbers to the borough's leisure centres. There were around 1.6 million visits logged between April 2013 and March 2014 – up by six per cent on the previous year.

Around £38.5 million has already been spent by the authority on building three new leisure centres in Tipton , Oldbury and West Bromwich, while more than £7m is also currently being spent on a new centre in Wednesbury.