PIONEERING work to ensure rural communities in East Lancs stay active outside of work is set to be rolled out to new areas.

Villagers in Dunsop and Slaidburn, in the Ribble Valley, benefitted from the work of a Sport England pilot project called Together an Active Future (TaAF).

Mark Beveridge, the borough's leisure services head, said the pilot, dubbed Active Villages for the Hodder Valley communities, had proved to be a success and it was "always intended to provide a blueprint that could be rolled out across the valley".

He told councillors in a community services committee report: "Many spin-off initiatives have resulted from this work, for example a collaboration with the Field Nurses to develop a leaflet for the farming community called ‘Farming Stronger for Longer’.

"The purpose of this work is to provide help to a community that is often very difficult to access due to working patterns of the workforce and the wide rural area they cover. This is receiving great interest not just locally but across boundaries."

Council officials have been seeking out partners to develop the scheme across other valley villages, with a launch event already taking place in Sabden in July.

Further options for a roll-out include introducing Active Villages in Hurst Green, Waddington and Ribchester in future.

Mr Beveridge added: "Villages such as these have limited access to the larger facilities such as the swimming pool and Edisford.

"Many do however have village or church halls which are used for some activity now and could be used for more.

"All these villages have excellent access to open spaces where activities can be organised. The overall purpose of the work is to identify and train up local people who can continue to work with other people in the village to facilitate activity sessions, thereby increasing opportunities overall and the levels of physical activity (in) the village.

"There is a crucial difference this new approach and the past approach of simply providing classes or activities. Evidence suggests overall activity levels through simply providing classes tends to tail off quickly and is not sustainable from a financial perspective.

"This new approach is focused on building community capacity to keep growing activity that is driven by the community itself."

Sport England are said to be particularly interested in the project as a national model for increasing physical activity in a rural setting.