Signatory Showcase from Liverpool City Region
One Year On: Liverpool City Region's Growing Movement for Gender Equity in Physical Activity
For many women and girls across Liverpool City Region (LCR), deeply ingrained systemic barriers still stand in the way of living an active life.
12 months ago, LCR made history alongside Greater Manchester when they jointly became the first place-based signatories to the IWG Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration. Championed by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram, this landmark commitment provided a devolved mandate to tackle gender inequity.
Pic L to R: Steve Rotheram (Mayor of Liverpool City Region), Eve Holt (Head of Policy & Implementation, Greater Manchester Combined Authority), Lisa O’Keefe (Secretary General, IWG Women & Sport), Justine Blomeley (CEO, Merseyside Sports Partnership), Andy Burnham (then Mayor of Greater Manchester, now Prime Minister of the United Kingdom)
A Growing, Cross-System Movement
Merseyside Sport Partnership (MSP) and the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority collaborated to create ‘Shaping Change’, a unified, region-wide action plan.
The plan ensures that top-down policies are actively shaped by lived, local experiences. To drive it forward, MSP convened a collaborative, cross-sector working group bringing together key stakeholders from transport and active travel, local authorities, football foundations, higher education, and public safety networks.
“The declaration has helped give a wider framework and a collective voice to work that is happening locally. In St. Helens, our focus has increasingly moved beyond simply asking how we get more women and girls to be active, to asking what needs to change in our environments, organisations, and systems so that women and girls feel safe, represented, and genuinely able to be active. Being part of the city region commitment gives us the opportunity to share our learning, influence change, and make the work bigger than any one programme, place, or organisation.”
Gemma Ireland, Sport & Physical Activity Development Manager, St Helens Borough Council
In addition, the approach was promoted and partners across the region were invited to pledge their commitment to the shared vision. Diverse organisations ranging from local authorities and universities to football foundations and grassroots clubs have signed up to the action plan including Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) the first organisation to publicly pledge its support to the approach.
“One year on, the Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration has provided an important catalyst for turning shared ambition into collective action… Working collectively has enabled connections, conversations, and opportunities that would have been difficult to achieve in isolation. As we move into the second year, I am excited to see that work develop alongside the wider regional programme, bringing research and practice closer together and generating evidence that can help us identify where and how we can create meaningful, lasting change. The Declaration was an important commitment, but its real legacy will be determined by what we collectively do with it.” Dr Tori Sprung, Reader in Clinical Exercise Physiology, LJMU School of Sport & Exercise Sciences.
System Change in Action
The momentum generated over the past year has created ripples of innovative, region-wide initiatives designed to tackle physical, cultural, and systemic barriers.
From rolling out of an Active Bystander programme that will challenge normalised sexism to rethinking the safety of our public parks and streets, partners across LCR and actively changing the landscape of movement.
The full breadth of these projects can be found in MSPs 12 month review of progress.
Richard Jones, Liverpool County Football Association (LCFA), highlights how their pledge is driving action across multiple layers of the system:
“Liverpool FA is proud to have pledged our support for gender equity… ensuring that female football remains a key priority in our 2024-2028 strategy by increasing opportunities for females of all ages to have clear entry routes into the game, whether that be playing, coaching, refereeing or volunteering. We are using the game as a catalyst to address social issues such as Violence Against Women & Girls through our She Inspires Police Programme, and ensuring females have equal access to funded facilities and qualifications. Crucially, we have introduced our Female Football Forum to continually listen to the experiences and needs of our females, ensuring our programmes are catering directly to their requirements.”
Richard Jones, Liverpool City Football Association (LCFA), Head of Communities.
Kirsty McLean, Executive Director of Public Sector Innovation & Partnerships at the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, reflects on the significance of this collaborative journey:
“Translating a global treaty into genuine local action requires a unified, system-wide approach. By bridging top-down leadership with grassroots reality, we are ensuring that our region’s policies and spaces are actively shaped by lived, local experiences. The progress we have made over the last 12 months proves that when we collaborate across sectors – from transport to sport to community safety – we can create safer, more equitable environments for all women and girls.”
Kirsty McLean, Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.
Local Commitment, Global Blueprint
In July 2026, a delegation from Liverpool City Region took this collaborative blueprint to the global stage at the IWG 9th Global Summit on Women & Sport, showcasing this place-based approach.
“Signing the Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration was a catalyst for the Liverpool City Region – the start of a movement to remove barriers to physical activity and drive significant systemic change. It has sparked a number of strands of work focused on changing culture, increasing activity levels, and creating the conditions for everyone to be more active. What’s particularly exciting is the momentum it has created. More people and organisations are coming together, building on each other’s energy and turning a shared ambition into collective action. The movement is now generating its own momentum, creating new connections, new opportunities, and the potential for lasting change across the whole region.”
Justine Blomeley, CEO, Merseyside Sports Partnership
“The size of the prize for getting this right is enormous – not just for women and girls, but for our wider communities and service providers. Liverpool City Region and Greater Manchester’s approach is brilliantly simple. By using the Brighton Plus Helsinki Declaration as a catalyst to connect senior leadership with grassroots reality, they are demonstrating exactly how this global treaty should be used to drive genuine, place-based change.”
Lisa O’Keefe MBE, Secretary General, IWG Women & Sport
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