Birmingham City Council is working on a project with Dr William Bird of Intelligent Health, to evidence the value of its parks in terms of getting people active.

The council launched Active Parks in spring last year, to complement its citywide Be Active programme, which offers the use of its leisure facilities free to residents at allocated times during the day.

Be Active is funded by the NHS. According to Karen Creavin, physical inactivity among residents costs the council £20m a year, so this investment saves money in the long run. “Independent evaluation has shown that for every £1 we spend, £21.30 is returned to the system,” she says.

Having run citywide since 2009, Be Active has been a hit, with 40 per cent of Birmingham’s residents having signed up and it has been successful in encouraging the lower socio economic groups into its leisure centres.

The council is now hoping to replicate this success with Active Parks. A variety of activities are now on offer in 50 of Birmingham’s 600 parks and open spaces, including Tai Chi, Zumba, buggy fit and park fit, which is a softer version of British Military Fitness and all the family can join in.

Creavin says that Active Parks is appealing to a slightly different market from Be Active: “Mums like to come with their children. They tell us they don’t want childcare, they want activities that are good for all the family.” Also, the clientele tends to be very local to the park.

The problem with people using the parks for health and fitness purposes is that it is difficult to tell who is using them. To this end, Bird has created card technology, similar in principle to Oyster cards, so that those on GP referral schemes using the park for exercise can swipe a smart card and money will automatically flow from the NHS to the parks department.

This is set to be extended so that people will be able to touch their phone to the reader, so the council will be able to find out who is using the parks for health purposes and use that information to evidence the value of parks when it comes to budgets.