Beat the Street returns

The innovative physical activity game that took Blaby District by storm last year, Beat the Street, is set to return from 26 February to 08 April.

Nearly 11,000 people across the district took part and together walked, cycled, ran and scooted 93,000 miles over the six-week game in 2019.

Results from a survey at the end of the game showed that participants made healthy lifestyle changes after taking part. Key findings were that the proportion of children who met the national recommended guidelines of physical activity (60 minutes per day) rose from 47% of child players before the game to 65% afterwards.

Among adult players, prior to the game, 21% of adult players were completely inactive (doing less than 30 minutes of exercise per week). After the game this dropped to just 11% of players.

Beat the Street is part of Blaby District Council’s Green Agenda, and will aim to reduce single car occupancy – encouraging people to actively travel to school and to work throughout the duration of the game and beyond.

Councillor Sharon Coe, Portfolio Holder for Health, Wellbeing and Regulatory Services at Blaby District Council, said: “We are incredibly excited to be bringing Beat the Street back to the district and we can’t wait to see if we can beat our previous mileage of 93,000.

“The idea of the game is to encourage people to ditch the car, walk to school or work and to get more active. The feedback from participants was incredibly positive- not only did people enjoy walking, cycling and running, but they also reported less congestion, more family and social time plus finding new places close by that they’d not visited before.

“It’s open to everyone, so please keep an eye out for more information including where you can pick up a free card.”

Pupils at participating primary schools will be provided with fobs while their parents and teachers will receive a card from the school so they can accompany the children. These can then be registered to the school team to help them to score points.

The wider community can pick up a contactless card from a distribution point which will be listed on Beat the Street’s website. Players then walk or cycle between the 105 Beat Boxes which are spaced half a mile apart – tapping the fobs or cards as they go. The further players travel, the more points they score.

Residents are also encouraged to enter workplaces, community groups and sports groups into the game.

Beat the Street is being delivered by Intelligent Health and funded by Blaby District Council, Leicestershire County Council, a National Lottery funding grant from Sport England and the Canal and River Trust.

More information is available on the Beat the Street website, on Twitter and Facebook.