Active Neighbourhood Scans seek to identify opportunities to make small, public space improvements that enable residents to be active more easily where they live. The scans ensure that the routes, paths, parks, green spaces and play areas within the neighbourhood are explored to fully understand how easy it is for residents to walk, wheel and be active. Completed with community residents, groups and organisations, schools, planners and developers, the scans provide invaluable insight that will help us make collective changes to increase activity levels within these neighbourhoods.

Scans have been completed in:

• Blackbird Leys and Northfield Brook
• Banbury Ruscote and Neithrop

You can find the reports and outcomes of the scans here.

We are now launching the Active Neighbourhoods Ideas Fund to help make changes to the green and communal spaces in these neighbourhoods, to turn the ideas that came out of the scans into reality.

If you have an idea to make improvements to Blackbird Leys or Banbury, which will allow residents to be active more easily in any of the ways listed below, we'd love to hear your idea. We can consider ideas from community groups, organisations, schools, charities, and groups of residents.

We completed the Active Neighbourhood Scan for Blackbird Leys and Northfield Brook (The Leys) in September 2023.

The scan identified four key ways in which the green spaces and environment of The Leys could be changed in order to enable residents to be more active locally.

For Blackbird Leys, we are looking for projects which tackle the 4 following themes.

• Underutilised green space - projects may include ideas to improve underutilised green space, such as community gardens or opportunities for accessible play.
• Making spaces more attractive - ideas may include planting wild flowers in existing beds or along paths, or redesigning welcome signs to be more attractive.
• Litter and fly tipping - project ideas may include community litter picks, weekly walking groups with a focus on collecting litter, schools or organisations to purchase litter pickers.
• Creation of more community spaces - ideas may include creating signs for way-finding existing spaces, or the installation of social areas in green spaces and parks.

We completed the Active Neighbourhood Scans in Banbury Neithrop and Ruscote in September 2023. The scan identified five key ways of improving the neighbourhoods to make them spaces to be active in more easily. We are looking for projects which tackle any of the following themes:

• Availability of accessible play equipment in parks - projects may include the creation of a sensory area in a path, or the purchasing and installing of an accessible swing
• Underutilised green space - ideas could be creating community gardens or opportunities for accessible play
• Making spaces more attractive - project ideas might be installing wild bed flowers in existing flower beds or paths, or redesigning attractive welcome signs
• Litter and fly tipping - projects could include organising community litter picks or a weekly walking group with a focus on collecting litter, or schools or organisations to purchase litter pickers
• Cycling safety - this could include the creation of safe route cycling maps

If you have an idea that addresses one of these themes, please complete this short form:

Blackbird Leys application form

Banbury application form

If you have any questions, please contact Ellie at ActiveNeighbourhoods@activeoxfordshire.org.