ACTIVENEWHAM FIRST TO PUBLISH OPEN DATA

London Borough of Newham leisure trust, activeNewham, has released open activity data, allowing external access to its physical activity sessions in order to broaden its community reach.

activeNewham operates four leisure centres and one fitness centre in Newham, all of which offer varied physical activity sessions and facilities, including outdoor activities elsewhere to the public. Already providing all activity sessions in one place at the activeNewham website, the trust believed it was the right move to go a step further and make this information openly available for use across a range of external channels to reach a wider community.

Keiron Butcher continued:

“Finding a time and place to do activities should be easy, our users want to be able to spend more time enjoying their activities rather than signing up to multiple providers to check availability and pricing. Sharing our activity data makes total sense. We hope that we will see innovative solutions from web and app providers taking advantage of activeNewham’s data and many others to really provide local availability and choice.”

Taking advantage of cross-sector collaboration

The release of activeNewham’s data was made possible with collaboration and support from imin, London Sport, London Legacy Development Corporation, Newham Council, Hackney Council and the Open Data Institute all working together as part of the OpenActive initiative. All organisations convened at different stages of the project to provide the necessary skills, technology and leadership required to make the data open, while maximising benefits for the community and leisure trust.

Peter Fitzboydon, Chief Executive at London Sport said:

“activeNewham’s decision to open their physical activity opportunity data is great news for London, for the wider sport sector, and for the future of physical activity and sport in London. I believe that open data and technology are among the biggest opportunities for supporting more people into regular physical activity in the capital, and I am particularly pleased that London Sport’s advocacy has played a part in supporting today’s development.”

Data aggregator imin has been imbedded in the process of making the existing activity sessions data openly available from the data platform Gladstone. Dom Fennell, Account Lead at imin shares the critical role of collaboration:

“We are tremendously pleased to have been involved in activeNewham’s efforts to open up its activity data. Thanks to cross-sector collaboration, imin has worked collectively with Keiron and his team at activeNewham, and others involved, building a support network to best use the open activity data to benefit the local residents of the Borough of Newham.”

Helping people make more suitable decisions

London Sport’s Get Active London portal, was used during the development stages to test how open activity data could reach the wider community and has continued to use the data now it is published. They worked closely with activeNewham to meet the physical needs of its area, which has traditionally lower rates of participation in physical activity in London.

In its own analysis, activeNewham identified that people do not always know which centre to go to and are not always sure of the sessions they would like to attend. Making data about activities from all activeNewham locations accessible for other data users will help the community discover activities that are best suited to their needs.

First leisure trust open dataset released to increase participation

activeNewham is the first leisure trust to open up its activity data inspired by “other organisations reap[ing] the benefits of opening up their data to new markets such as TFL” said Keiron Butcher, IT and Communications Director at ActiveNewham.

activeNewham operates four leisure centres and one fitness centre in Newham, all of which offer varied physical activity sessions and facilities, including outdoor activities elsewhere to the public. Already providing all activity sessions in one place at the activeNewham website, the trust believed it was the right move to go a step further and make this information openly available for use across a range of external channels to reach a wider community.

Keiron Butcher continued:

“Finding a time and place to do activities should be easy, our users want to be able to spend more time enjoying their activities rather than signing up to multiple providers to check availability and pricing. Sharing our activity data makes total sense. We hope that we will see innovative solutions from web and app providers taking advantage of activeNewham’s data and many others to really provide local availability and choice.”

Taking advantage of cross-sector collaboration

The release of activeNewham’s data was made possible with collaboration and support from imin, London Sport, London Legacy Development Corporation, Newham Council, Hackney Council and the Open Data Institute all working together as part of the OpenActive initiative. All organisations convened at different stages of the project to provide the necessary skills, technology and leadership required to make the data open, while maximising benefits for the community and leisure trust.

Peter Fitzboydon, Chief Executive at London Sport said:

“activeNewham’s decision to open their physical activity opportunity data is great news for London, for the wider sport sector, and for the future of physical activity and sport in London. I believe that open data and technology are among the biggest opportunities for supporting more people into regular physical activity in the capital, and I am particularly pleased that London Sport’s advocacy has played a part in supporting today’s development.”

Data aggregator imin has been imbedded in the process of making the existing activity sessions data openly available from the data platform Gladstone. Dom Fennell, Account Lead at imin shares the critical role of collaboration:

“We are tremendously pleased to have been involved in activeNewham’s efforts to open up its activity data. Thanks to cross-sector collaboration, imin has worked collectively with Keiron and his team at activeNewham, and others involved, building a support network to best use the open activity data to benefit the local residents of the Borough of Newham.”

Helping people make more suitable decisions

London Sport’s Get Active London portal, was used during the development stages to test how open activity data could reach the wider community and has continued to use the data now it is published. They worked closely with activeNewham to meet the physical needs of its area, which has traditionally lower rates of participation in physical activity in London.

In its own analysis, activeNewham identified that people do not always know which centre to go to and are not always sure of the sessions they would like to attend. Making data about activities from all activeNewham locations accessible for other data users will help the community discover activities that are best suited to their needs.