List of Publications | Latest Content | What's Important | Frequently Asked Questions

Public Access Strategy - Review & Analysis Summary

  • North Lanarkshire has a poor health record and high levels of poverty.  Many residents die from diseases related to lifestyle and their health would be helped by opportunities to take exercise – whether just for pleasure, or (more likely) as part of everyday life in terms of travel to work, taking children to school, shopping and community events.
  • Pre-existing data suggest that walking is already by far the most common form of exercise taken by the resident population and that many of them are aware of the health benefits exercise can bring and prepared to take more.
  • The geography of North Lanarkshire's population means that it is concentrated in urban areas, but that these are fragmented and scattered throughout the area.  Pockets of social exclusion exist right across the area, in many cases right next to more affluent neighbourhoods.  Any access strategy needs first to take account of the relationship between the location of current or potential route provision, the concentration of population and the characteristics of that population.
  • There is strong evidence to suggest that participation in community process and contact with the community members can have a beneficial effect on physical and mental health.
  • The community consultation processes, which should surround public access form an ideal basis for developing community interaction and support, for socially including those most often excluded.
  • Some 18% of respondents were not exercising at the time of the Lanarkshire Health and Lifestyle survey and did not intend to be in the following six months.  Rather than being the groups for whom this access strategy means least, these must be the groups for whom it is made most.

Back to Contents Forward to Next Section

 

A to Z of Content | Help | Site Map