Over the last five years, KKP has worked closely with Sunderland City Council and partners, providing strategic planning input, expertise and support in facilities planning, commercial leisure, sports development, PE and school sport, play, culture and events.

Developing the Council's Facilities Development Plan was the first of a sequence of strategies that we worked with Sunderland to  underpin the Council's integrated strategic approach to the future direction of the service:

Facilities Strategy - recognising facilities as a key element of the City's profile, this strategy was designed to ensure that high quality, accessible provision is available in each of the Council's regeneration framework areas; contributing to the quality of life offer made to residents and delivering on the Council's corporate commitment to local communities.

PE and School Sport Strategy - this centred upon the need for a culture change, shifting the emphasis to child/young person-centred processes to generate a measurable net improvement in young peoples' physical literacy, wellness and propensity for lifelong involvement in sport.

Play and Urban Games Strategy - a 10 year strategy and action plan set out how the Council was to tackle challenges related to changing demographics and develop a network of high quality, play facilities that are demonstrably relevant to its young people with the flexibility to accommodate change, growth and development.

Sport and Physical Activity Strategy - aimed at drawing together key strands of the other documents with the end result of increasing participation in sport and physical activity for all sections of the community in Sunderland reflecting the drivers of other national, regional and local, plans and strategies.

The innovation and consistency that KKP brought to this work created a solid foundation to help the Council and its partners realise its core vision that:

"In Sunderland everyone will have affordable access to quality sport and physical activity opportunities to improve their health and well-being at first class, community based facilities throughout the City."

The City Council has a reputation for embracing objective challenge and review with a proactive drive for continuous improvement. And so, John Eady, who led the team that delivered the various tranches of work, was recently invited back to lead a two day review with the Senior Management Team of Community and Cultural Services to assess progress in strategy delivery - evaluating key areas of success and outstanding challenges.

Success to date has focussed on facilities with a number of new community facilities (not to mention the recently opened flagship Sunderland Aquatics Centre) now in operation or scheduled to open alongside development and refurbishment of others and the closure of old, outdated amenities. This process has had a major impact on perceptions and the actuality of quality of sporting opportunity in the City.

The Council is also actively implementing Play & Urban Games Strategy recommendations. As a result of this, and responding to extensive community consultation, it has a growing network of new and improved play provision including a new skate park in Silksworth. Alison O'Neill, Assistant Head of Community Services (Sport & Leisure) said,

"We are particularly pleased with KKP's clear action plan now adopted by our play team. It is pleasing to witness the increase in play activity following implementation of the Strategy."

Having placed the review into the context of recent developments across the industry, the group knuckled down to dealing with how the City is to tackle outstanding challenges and then to sculpt an action plan for the next five years, incorporating key priority areas such as:

• Joint-use provision - the level of departmental emphasis to be placed on supporting development of freestanding and school-site based facility provision and how BSF investment can be optimised for community as well as school sport benefit. 
• Management information - how to optimise the value and usefulness of performance management information produced by the City's recently introduced leisure card system.
• Sports development - how the City's role in developing sport and animating the facilities it is successfully developing should be taken forward.

Paul Dobson, Director of Community and Cultural Services was clearly pleased with the event's outcome. He said,

"It is clear that the session was successful and helped in formulating the team's next steps. However more importantly, John presented colleagues with a number of issues which got them thinking in a different way."

With 20+ years experience and renowned as one of the industry's most original and forthright thinkers, John is often called upon to manage complex diagnostic and troubleshooting assignments. He has the ability to combine local understanding with his extensive knowledge and experience of contemporary issues and apply it to individual environments and situations.

He has real depth of expertise working with local authorities, NGBs, CSPs and major leisure trusts on strategic planning, governance and organisational review assignments.

Work with Sunderland follows hard on the heels of comparable KKP assignments with leading local authorities such as Preston, Bolton and Salford, CSPs and NGBs including the RFU and England Basketball. Setting time aside to assess where you have come from, where you are currently, to map out where you are going and, most importantly, whether you were on the right path in the first place has great value and our expertise in this area is nationally recognised.

From diagnostics and assessments, organisation and facilitation of workshops and springboard events through to individual and team management development, we are recognised for our pragmatic and practical approach providing step by step, action oriented solutions. By turning theory into reality, we help you to make a real difference to your organisation and its impact.

To discuss this further please contact John Eady, Chief Executive - john.eady@kkp.co.uk