Aligning Pride in Place

This coordinated approach is laying the foundations for multi-year investment in Essex Pedal Power, active travel infrastructure, enhanced youth provision, and a proposed Neighbourhood Health Hub within local leisure facilities, ensuring that physical activity and wellbeing remain integral to Canvey’s future.

Active Essex’s role was instrumental from the beginning. The team supported the establishment of the Neighbourhood Board by identifying and recommending key local partners, including the SSP, who could represent schools and provide a direct link to the Sport England Place Partnership. Alongside this, Active Essex worked with senior officers at Castle Point Borough Council and Thames Estuary to share insight, data, and learning from the existing Place Partnership, reducing duplication and helping the council meet tight deadlines for the initial Pride in Place submission. Where consultation had already taken place, Active Essex helped translate community priorities into clear investment themes, ensuring that physical activity and active wellbeing were embedded across both capital and revenue proposals. One of the most significant achievements was the rapid mobilisation of youth engagement, with the SSP capturing the views of children and young people from all 12 schools on Canvey Island within just seven days.

Their feedback directly shaped the allocation of the £20 million investment over the next decade, influencing plans for active travel infrastructure supported by programmes such as Essex Pedal Power and scooter training, leadership opportunities to build confidence and life skills, early years and youth support to give young people the best start in life, ideas for community mentoring, and proposals to help the most disadvantaged children learn to swim. These priorities align strongly with the Active Essex Implementation Plan, contributing to outcomes across Active Spaces and Places, Children and Young People, and Prevention.

The work has been strengthened by a committed group of partners, including Castle Point Borough Council’s Place and Communities Directorate and Recreation and Leisure teams, the Castle Point and Rochford School Sport Partnership, and the South East Essex Health Alliance. Their collaboration has ensured that the Pride in Place plan is grounded in local insight, community aspiration, and system-wide alignment.

The ripple effects of this work are already visible. Youth Boards established under the Place Partnership Expansion will now be rebranded under Pride in Place, with dedicated budgets to allocate towards local projects - embedding youth voice not only in physical activity but in the wider regeneration of Canvey Island. The process has also highlighted the value of local PE and school sport networks in driving system outcomes, strengthening the case for their involvement in future place-based initiatives. Conversations supported through Pride in Place have brought the NHS and Sport England together around a shared commitment to developing a Neighbourhood Health Hub, aligned with Sport England’s Future of Leisure Report and the NHS 10-Year Plan, with the expectation of joint capital investment. The work has also strengthened system leadership across partners, creating opportunities for wider leadership development in 2026, and local partners have been invited to share their learning at the Essex Learning Event: Share Connect Collaborate.

Looking ahead, the priority is to maintain strong partnership working and ensure consistent communication between the two place-based programmes, with clear objectives guiding the next phase. Unlocking future funding opportunities will be essential to delivering the outcomes set out in both Pride in Place and the Place Partnership Expansion. While the work to date has focused on building foundations and aligning ambitions, the next stage will involve securing investment and mobilising the proposed programme of activity.