Summit unveils new content on place‑based solutions to boost participation

Our next Summit content drop is here: two new sessions announced focusing on the role place-based community-led approaches play in tackling inactivity, inequalities and broadening participation and access to those with the most barriers and the most to gain.

At the heart of these sessions is an important and stark reality: ability to engage in swimming and aquatics is sadly not equal. There are people, families and communities who experience more barriers than others, whether that be due to socio-economics, disability and long-term conditions or ethnicity. For swimming specifically, this inequality matters and can have long-term adverse affects on the lives of people and their wider communities.

These sessions explore how a Place approach can change the game forever, enabling people, families and communities of all types to benefit from a life that includes swimming competence and participation.

Swim England’s Helen Marney, Director of Community Participation and Health will be joined by Lisa Dodd-Mayne, Sport England Executive Director of Place and Adam Rigarlsford, Sport England Director of Place Relationships as they share learning and impact from their, and the wider sector’s, strategic approach to working with and through ‘place’ over the last 8 years. They will also share the role a focus on place will be play in Sport England’s ongoing strategy and their perspectives on the impact swimming and aquatics will play in Uniting the Movement as Swim England’s approach to tackling inactivity and inequalities through a place approach is built, developed and delivered.

The session will present the compelling case for a place approach to broadening and diversifying participation and access and the enormous contribution that swimming and aquatics can make to the wider sector. It will introduce Swim England’s emerging Place Approach as well as setting out Sport England’s future priorities and the significant role Place will continue to play.

Alongside this, our second session will bring together a panel who will share their experiences, learning and perspectives on the role of Place approaches have played in their settings and strategies and the impact they have seen as a result.

Through panel discussion we will draw on insight from place approaches in a range of settings, including but not limited to swimming and aquatics, reflecting on key learnings of what has worked and why as well as what is needed to realise long-term impact. These insights will help delegates better understand the realities of working through Place, its core components and principles, exploring how swimming and aquatics can build and grow through an emerging place approach.

Why attend these sessions?

Whether you’re shaping strategy, delivering locally, or looking to work more effectively through a place approach as part of local communities and systems, these two sessions are essential for anyone looking to understand how national strategy translates into local action and how place partnerships can unlock change that lasts.

Join us at The Vox, Birmingham on Thursday 19th March 2026 and be part of the conversation shaping the future of aquatics.