The Active Friendly Environments Project – A partnership informing planning, policy & practice
The Active Friendly Environments Project is a pilot study coordinated by North Shore City Council supported through SPARC investment. The study commenced in August 2004 and was completed in 2006.
Introduction
The rationale behind the project is that physical inactivity is now a leading modifiable cause of disease in most developed countries. As such, increasing physical activity is a national priority in these countries, including New Zealand.
Internationally, environmental design has been identified as a key determinant in sustainable physical activity participation, but there has been little research undertaken examining the associations between physical activity participation and the local urban environment in a New Zealand context.
The objective of Active Friendly Environments is to take a local context (North Shore) and understand how people perceive their physical environment and how this influences the level of physical activity that they undertake within it. Active Friendly Environments poses and provides answers to questions such as, ‘What are the perceived and real environmental barriers to physical activity?’ And, ‘If we are working with national and local social marketing initiatives to increase physical activity through behaviour change, what evidence do we have that the built environment will support or encourage that behaviour change?’
Project partners described the need for the project to directly inform policy, planning and practice, and to provide a research model for other councils or interested parties to adopt.
The Active Friendly Environments research report links the research findings to the day-to-day business of North Shore City Council work groups including:
- Parks and Open Space planning
- Transport and Roading
- Leisure Services
- Community Services
- Strategy and Policy - (district plan and urban planning and design)
- Environmental Services - (regulatory).
This case study takes a brief look at the partnership through which the project was delivered and the innovative combination of research methods. It also focuses on the findings and recommendations and how they are being applied across North Shore City Council work groups and elsewhere.
Updated | 07 Oct 2008.
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