One year on from LDN Moving: I want our projects to grab people's attention.

Emily Robinson reflects on a busy first few weeks as London Sport's CEO as well as the pathway to achieving our six long-term aspirations outlined in our LDN Moving strategy. 

It's been a busy first month at London Sport and I must thank everyone I have met so far for their warm welcome and enthusiasm to support Londoners enjoy a happier, healthier, and more active life.

If we’re yet to meet, you can learn a bit more about me here, and I look forward to seeing many more of you over the coming months as I get out and learn more about our impact across the city.

I want London Sport to reflect our city, and make sure our projects have impact that grab people’s attention.

Physical activity and sport have the power to help people lead happier, healthier lives and we want all Londoners to have equal access and opportunity.

This vital equality is a core component of our organisation’s LDN Moving strategy, launched 12 months ago.

It’s been a busy year building an alliance of existing and new partners who back our mission to transform lives through physical activity and sport and radically reduce inequalities of access and opportunity.

There are glaring inequalities in terms of long-term health and wellbeing outcomes across our city, many of which were exacerbated by the pandemic, and we strongly believe sport and physical activity has a central role in this levelling up agenda.

Implementing LDN Moving

LDN Moving is made up of six long-term aspirations which, when we achieve them, will make a fundamental difference to physical activity and sport in London and the health and wellbeing of Londoners.

They are not easy goals, and they will take time. But we believe they’re game-changers and we must put our focus and efforts into making real and significant change through physical activity and sport.

So how will we achieve our long-term aspirations?

A passionate case for physical activity and sport: Make the case, through trusted partnerships across London, for physical activity and sport as a tool which actively contributes to reducing inequalities and the missions outlined in the London Recovery Paper (e.g. Healthy Place, Mental Health, Young People and Strong Communities).

A compelling vision: Bringing together partners will enable us to build an aligned system with momentum behind physical activity and sport and a collective, positive impact.

Lead the way: Instigate place-based projects which deliver positive outcomes for communities where inequalities are prevalent and share those learnings to ensure the wider sector can build capacity and the scale of such projects.

Capitalise on tech and digital: Use the reach and scalability of tech and digital approaches and ensure that physical activity and sport remains aligned to the increasingly digital lives of Londoners.

London Sport has always been proud to be an insight-led organisation and data and insight will continue to guide our efforts across the city. 

Insight and our segmentation of less active Londoners allows us to understand and empathise with the communities, consult on potential delivery, and measure and report on our successes.

I’m determined that London Sport be more direct in our work and focus the majority of our efforts into specific projects which lead to clear impact where we can purposefully engage with people and communities and deliver significant positive outcomes.

Only then can we work together to identify and tackle the inequalities that harm our city. Sport England’s Local Delivery Pilots are an excellent example of this approach.

I hope that, throughout the implementation of LDN Moving, I will get to meet many of you in person and see and hear more about the work we’re doing together now and can adopt in the future.