Getting active outdoors in the Tamar Valley

At the end of last year, Devon’s Local Nature Partnership was awarded National Lottery funding from Sport England to deliver an exciting five-year programme to support people aged over fifty-five in Devon to connect actively to nature. After a busy development phase, the project will be working with an exciting mix of organisations, including the Tamar Valley Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), to deliver activities across the area. The ‘Connecting Actively to Nature (CAN)’ programme will help over 3,000 inactive people to discover the combined benefits of a more active lifestyle with the psychological benefits brought by being outdoors in nature. It is managed by Active Devon which is an independent not-for-profit organisation inspiring and supporting Devon’s population to lead active lifestyles. The CAN programme specifically focuses on helping people who are not normally active, to access outdoor environments, whether it’s people with long-term health conditions, people who don’t consider themselves fit or people with lots of commitments who consider themselves too busy to get outdoors.

Hannah Colston, Tackling Inactivity Director at Active Devon said: “The partnership behind the successful Devon CAN programme is seeking to improve and adapt existing opportunities so they are more welcoming to people taking their first steps into

activity. It will also create lots of different types of new, informal activity groups designed by the target customers themselves.”

Tamar Valley AONB is already busy consulting people about what activities to deliver across the Tamar Valley area and is keen to hear ideas about existing activities that could be adapted to support inactive people, as well as new activities that could be set up under the CAN programme. As part of helping people to take their first steps into outdoor activities, the programme is recruiting a wide range of volunteers who will help to welcome people and support them through the early phase of adapting to a more active lifestyle. These volunteer ambassadors will play a crucial role in helping people to have the confidence to try something new. The wider CAN programme will be recruiting and upskilling three hundred and sixty inspirational volunteer ambassadors over the five years and activity programmes will be launching in summer 2018.

In Devon there are over 122,000 people aged 55+ who are doing less than 30

minutes of physical activity each week, with over 43,000 people suffering from mental health conditions. An ageing population often means that although people are living longer they acquire more long-term health conditions due to physical inactivity. The CAN programme will help more people to enjoy the combined benefits of getting active outdoors and connecting to nature.

If you have any ideas for activities that will help older people to step outside in nature, or are interested in becoming a volunteer ambassador, the Tamar Valley AONB would love to hear from you. Contact info@tamarvalley.org.uk