Sport England Active Lives Survey Results 2022-23
Active Travel is recovering from its pandemic dip (low point in 2021), but is not quite back to pre-pandemic levels yet.
That’s according to Sport England’s newly-released Active Lives Survey Results for November 2022-23.
Sport England Press Release
Sport England’s press release leads with the information that that 2 million more adults are active than when the survey started in 2016.
This is somewhat misleading, because the UK population has increased from 65.65 million to 68.27 million in that time. The Active Lives survey covers England only, but England accounts for most of the UK population increase.
Chris Boardman Comments
Chris Boardman, who is Sport England Chair as well as National Active Travel Commissioner, said:
‘Today’s Active Lives figures show that, year-on-year, one million more adults are choosing walking, wheeling and cycling as a way to get from A to B. The nationwide investment that is being put into delivering high-quality routes is paying off’.
comments by chris boardman
Again, ‘nationwide investment’ and ‘high-quality routes’ is misleading.
There may have been investment and new routes in some parts of England, but there have been no new routes in North Yorkshire, high-quality or otherwise, since Active Travel England was set up.
Levels of Activity
63.4% of adults were active in 2022-23.
The percentage is more meaningful than the absolute number of adults, and it has remained roughly stable over recent years.
The figures are broken down according to various categories. They show, for example, that men are more active than women and younger people (16-34) are more active than older people (35-54).
There are differences according to ethnicity, with people of mixed ethnicity the most active.
The more affluent adults are, the more likely they are to be active.
A similar divide applies based on whether people live in the least or most deprived places.
The south west is the most active region.
Cycling for Leisure Down
Perhaps the most depressing section of the report concerns cycling for leisure and sport, and running.
They are both down on their pandemic highs, but also down on 2016 numbers despite a significant population increase since then.
Read the full Active Lives Survey Report 2022-23.