The Chair welcomed
Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson to the
meeting and invited her to introduce herself.
Baroness
Grey-Thompson introduced herself as LGA president, Paralympian and
Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords and made the following
points:
- National
Fitness Day 2021 would take place on Wednesday 22 September and was
a chance to highlight the role that physical activity played across
the UK.
- Baroness
Grey-Thompson’s Paralympic career started in 1984 and
overall, she competed in five Paralympic Games. In total in her
Paralympic career, she won 16 medals and also 13 World Championship
medals.
- Baroness
Grey-Thompson emphasised the importance of sport and physical
activity and the vital role that the physical activity sector plays
in supporting mental health and wellbeing. She was interested in
better understanding how physical activity could be promoted and
highlighting the benefits of physical activity to government
departments.
- In
Baroness Grey-Thompson’s role as LGA president, she was
looking forward to working with people that shared her passions and
learning more about the Board’s aims and
objectives.
The Chair briefly
updated Baroness Grey-Thompson on the recent engagements with DCMS
Ministers and expressed the need to continue to push for further
engagement with DCMS colleagues and help them to better understand
all that local government do in the culture, tourism and sporting
sectors at a strategic level.
Members of the
Board made the following comments:
- The
Chair said that the series of slides presented to DCMS at a recent
Board meeting would also be sent to Baroness
Grey-Thompson.
- Cllr
German and Cllr Kelly emphasised the importance of access to
leisure facilities and ensuring that rural communities were not
disadvantaged by the potential leisure centre closures, and the
joining up of leisure and health through Integrated Care Systems
(ICS).
- Cllr
Henry emphasised the importance of ensuring that Ministers and
relevant government departments understood the interconnection
between sport, leisure and culture and the benefits of promoting
positive mental and physical health.
- Cllr
Chilcott asked that Baroness Grey-Thompson emphasise the importance
of interdependency between health, leisure and sport and the vital
need for community services to aid the NHS.
- The
Chair said that without suitable services in place to support
mental and physical wellbeing, the pressure on the NHS would
rise.
Baroness
Grey-Thompson responded to Members’ comments:
- Work was
being undertaken with DCMS colleagues to ensure that they
understood the size and scale of the culture, tourism and sport
sector and the vital role that local government plays. The work
included linking up to the Department for Health and new government
departments re the levelling up agenda and working in partnership
with government.
- Work was
being undertaken in relation to accessibility and ensuring that
appropriate infrastructure was in place to allow people to use
public space for exercise.
- Conversations needed to be had with providers re the cost of
leisure centres and swimming pools to ensure that all people could
access the facilities.
- Baroness
Grey-Thompson provided her e-mail address within the Microsoft
Teams chat to Members of the Board.
Decision:
- Members
of the Board noted Baroness Grey-Thompson’s
update.
Action:
·
Officers to send the series of slides
presented to DCMS at a recent Board meeting to Baroness
Grey-Thompson.