BRADFORD’S parks are key to a major project to get more children in the district to put their screens down and get active.

Peel Park will be one of the key parks that will be utilised as part of a pilot project that could eventually see up to £9 million invested in the North of Bradford.

The pilot, which saw Bradford named as one of a numbers of areas of the UK to benefit from £100 million of Lottery funding from Sport England was first announced in 2017.

At a meeting of Bradford Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee last week, members were given an update on the pilot.

They were told that Peel Park would get an upgrade through the pilot, turning it into a “superactive park.”

This could include a new “natural” play area and more facilities to allow children to get active, as well as working with schools and community groups to make sure the park is better used.

The funding will be provided over four years to “transform physical activity levels in 5 to 14-year-olds.”

Families urged to ditch cars and walk their children to school

It will initially focus on Allerton, Fairweather Green, Toller, Heaton, Manningham, City, Bolton/Undercliffe, Windhill and Eccleshill.

Active Bradford’s annual report reveals that in Bradford 77 per cent of children were not meeting physical activity guidelines of at least 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity a day.

And 60 per cent per cent of children’s waking time was spent sat down.

Girls spent on average 8 minutes less time per day engaged in MVPA than boys, South Asian children spent of average 9.5 minutes less time per day in MVPA than white British children, and only 15 per cent of South Asian children met guidelines for physical activity.

At the meeting Jan Burkhardt from Active Bradford said the pilot had £3 million of funding, but that could increase by another £6 million in the coming years. She said; “There needs to be a step change around physical activity of children and their families. Children are looking at screens so much now they use the phrase IRL, in real life.

“For many the digital world is more real than the actual outside world. We are seeing some children spending more than five hours a day on screens.”

She said the pilot would use research from Born in Bradford - a study that is following the lives of 13,000 young people in the district.

Councillors were told that 3,000 of these children were in the pilot area, and would be targeted by the activities. Over the next five years the Active Bradford team will see if the pilot has led to the health of these 3,000 children being any different than the 10,000 other Born In Bradford children in the district.

Once the findings have been researched, they will be shared across Bradford.

On Peel Park, Mrs Burkhardt said: “We really want to make it into a stronger destination park. We’re talking with schools in that local area to have a real whole school approach for how the park is used. We’re working with madrassahs and Imams to get involved too.”

She said similar approaches might then be taken on other parks in the North of the city.