Skip to content

New Active Design guidance published

This third iteration has been developed with planners, urban designers and developers in mind, and is centred around a foundational principle of 'activity for all'.

18th May 2023

New guidance on how the design of our environments can help people to lead more physically active and healthy lives has been published today.

The third iteration of our Active Design guidance, supported by Active Travel England (ATE) and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID), has been produced to help create ‘active environments’.

It maintains the 10 principles from the first two versions, with the foundational principle of ‘activity for all’ a constant throughout.

The guidance seeks to help planners, designers and everyone involved in delivering and managing our places to create and maintain environments that encourage people to move more.

And our chair Chris Boardman, who is also the National Active Travel Commissioner for ATE, believes this guidance holds the key to many issues currently facing the country.

"It’s hard to underestimate the benefits of Active Design," he said. "Creating places and spaces that both enable and entice us to move more in our every day lives, benefits us in so many ways - from saving money on travel to giving children transport independence, both of which will create healthier communities which, in turn, reduce the strain on the NHS.

"But we will only move more on a regular basis if it’s easy, attractive and safe. How to create an environment that enables that, is exactly what this guide is about.

"Enabling activity in our neighbourhoods is the core focus of the Active Design Guide but to be truly transformative for a nation, we need to extend the principles, so people can get to schools, shops and workplaces a bit further away, under their own steam.

"Sport England has worked closely with Active Travel England, so this vision can be delivered by future-thinking authorities and developers, passionate about designing wonderful places to live, that will stand the test of time.

"Who wouldn’t want to live in area like that?"

Active Design focuses on three themes; supporting active travel; active, high-quality places and spaces; and creating and maintaining activity – within which each of the 10 principles sit.

The guidance has been developed with planners, urban designers and developers in mind but is relevant to anyone involved in delivering and managing the built environment.
 

"We will only move more on a regular basis, if it’s easy, attractive and safe. How to create an environment that enables that, is exactly what this guide is about."

Chris Boardman

Chair, Sport England

It also provides useful case studies to illustrate how these principles can be successfully implemented in a variety of contexts.

This update builds on the work from Active Design 2 but reflects the latest research and practice in encouraging physical activity in the build and natural environment.

It adds the foundational principle of activity for all, as well as having a focus on creating safe spaces, advises how Active Design can connect to other policy priorities and has been designed to be more user friendly.
 

Find out more

Active Design

Launch webinar

Sign up to our newsletter

You can find out exactly how we'll look after your personal data, but rest assured we’ll only use it to make sure you receive our newsletter, to understand how you interact with our newsletter, and to provide administrative information about our newsletter.