The Glasgow 2014 Games: Regeneration and Physical Activity Legacy

Both the Scottish Government and Glasgow City Council expressed an intention to use the 2014 Commonwealth Games to inspire more citizens to become physically active. This report looks at the prospect of this being achieved in the East End of Glasgow, which served as the 'host' community for the Games, and was an area particularly identified as potentially benefitting from legacy.

In order to conduct the evaluation of physical activity legacy prospects in Glasgow's East End, we reviewed the major legacy programmes from the CWG in order to identify initiatives which are intended by their sponsors to support increased levels of physical activity. Following this, we used policy documents and stakeholder interviews to understand the mechanisms through which the programmes were intended to work. As a result, we identified 39 legacy programmes relevant to a sports and physical activity legacy, which we have divided into four legacy pathways: sports facilities; social infrastructure; schools; and environment:

Pathway One - Sports Facilities: This pathway includes programmes relating to investment in new and improved sports and leisure facilities, so that people have the opportunity to take more exercise.

Pathway Two - Social Infrastructure: This pathway relates to the development of social infrastructure through sports clubs, events, coaching and volunteers in order to stimulate grassroots participation.

Pathway Three - Schools: This pathway includes programmes which involve schools in order to promote greater levels of physical activity for children.

Pathway Four - Environment: This pathway covers programmes which aim to supporting physical activity and active travel through better-designed local environments.

The report combines the information gathered on the legacy programmes with evidence from the 2012 GoWell East survey to present an assessment of the prospects for each of the four legacy pathways.