Mobile Gym Brings Fitness to Your Front Door

21 December, 2004

Do you want to get fit, but the thought of long walks in the bracing Norfolk air leaves you cold? Next spring, NNDC and Active England are bringing fitness almost to your front door, courtesy of a new £200,000 mobile gym.

The gym, a state-of-the-art fitness facility on wheels, will be touring North Norfolk's communities until 2008, and hopefully beyond, thanks to funding from the Active England programme - a joint initiative between Sport England and the Big Lottery Fund.

A dozen people at a time will be able to use the gym - the first of its type in the country - when it rolls into North Norfolk in May 2005. Two part-time fitness instructors will be aboard to help people get appropriate exercise using the gym's rowing machines, exercise bikes, weights, stretch bands and aerobics gear, as well as offering health advice and other support.

The mobile gym is aimed at those people who would normally have difficulty getting to fitness facilities like the new sports centres at North Walsham and Fakenham. It will also target groups that traditionally don't use, or have been unable to use, such centres: girls and women, older people, people with disabilities, and disaffected young people.

It is a step on the treadmill towards the Government's target of getting 70% of people physically active by 2020, and for everyone to exercise for 30 minutes a day, five times a week, as set out in its Game Plan strategy for sport and physical activity. It will also contribute to the 1 per cent rise, year on year, in participation in 30-minutes-a-day physical activity that the East Regional Sports Board is committed to achieving.

The mobile gym project has also received partnership funding from Poppyland Sure Start, DC Leisure (the company that manages NNDC's sport and leisure centres), the North Norfolk Community Partnership and the North Norfolk Primary Care Trust.

Karl Read, NNDC's Sports Development Officer, said: "We're very excited about this project. For the first time we wholly believe that we can make a real difference to those targeted groups out in the District, and improve their quality of life. Due to the versatility of the mobile gym, we can remove those barriers that prevent people from participating in physical activity."

The gym will be found at schools, village hall car parks, market squares, and other venues, touring particular parts of North Norfolk for set periods. The timetable will be advertised in advance. The gym may be open to hire by community groups, and will be used by Sure Start (as a major funding partner) for work with very young children for two full days a week.

This scheme was one of a few Norfolk projects that received approval, endorsed by the Norfolk Sports Partnership. The other Norfolk projects are:

• Great Yarmouth Borough Council - Community-based sport and physical activity programme. Contact Marie Hartley on 01493 846354.

• Kings Lynn and West Norfolk Borough Council - New indoor skate park. Contact Jason Richardson on 01553 818018.

• Norfolk County Council - Extended Schools Project Officer, three-year project. Contact Debra Duncan on 01603 222045.

• Norfolk County Council - New outdoor pursuit centre, Whitlingham Broad. Contact Ali Welch on 01603 223083.

The projects were given funding under the banner of Active England, with funding from Sport England and the New Opportunities Fund. They were looking for innovative approaches of increasing physical activity levels in the local community.

NOTES FOR EDITOR

For more information, please contact:

• North Norfolk District Council

• DC Leisure

• East Regional Sports Board

• North Norfolk Community Partnership

• North Norfolk Primary Care Trust

• Sport England - Active England grant awards, November 2004

• Sure Start

ENDS