Manchester Active
Enabling and encouraging Manchester communities to prioritise health, lead active lifestyles and thrive.
Inspiring Mancunians to Move More
Manchester is a city that encourages everyone to be active, healthy and move more.
As the strategic delivery arm for Manchester City Council, Manchester Active lead on implementing the city’s Sport and Physical Activity Strategy. Here to inspire Mancunians to move more, our mission is to “enable and encourage Manchester communities to prioritise health, lead active lifestyles and thrive”.
We work with many partners to make sport and physical activity easier to access. This includes creating safe outdoor spaces, improving local facilities, and supporting programmes that help people become more active. We also help bring services together, such as leisure centres and health partners, so residents get better support.
Manchester has a strong sporting culture, with famous clubs and world‑class facilities. We aim to make sure these opportunities are open to everyone, helping the whole city stay active, healthy and proud.
Our senior leadership team
Meet the Senior Leadership Team responsible for leading Manchester’s sport & physical activity strategy, services and impact across the city.
Eamonn O’Rourke, Interim CEO
Manchester Active
Yarv Abbas, Deputy CEO and Head of Sport & Events
Manchester Active
Louise Harding, Deputy CEO and Strategic Lead for Facility Strategy and Capital
Manchester Active
Leads the development and delivery of major investment programmes transforming sport and leisure facilities across ManchesterLindsay Johnson, Sport Strategy Manager
Manchester Active
Sarah Lydon, Head of Health and Wellbeing
Manchester Active
Nicky Boothroyd, Leisure Property & Contracts Lead
Manchester City Council
Kevin Carter, Head of Central Support
Manchester Active
Finance and GDPR lead with oversight of Governance, Risk, Internal Audit, People, Payroll, Procurement and Contracts.
Our Strategy
As the strategic delivery arm for Manchester City Council, Manchester Active lead on implementing the city’s Sport and Physical Activity Strategy. Here to inspire Mancunians to move more, our mission is to “enable and encourage Manchester communities to prioritise health, lead active lifestyles and thrive”.
To understand more about who we are and our 8 key themes watch our strategy video or download our updated 10-Year Sport & Physical Activity Strategy.
Partnerships that move Manchester forward
We work with unique partnerships and relationships across the sport, physical activity and movement landscape across our city.
If you’re interested in joining us on our journey, and seeing how together, we can help Manchester move more, we’d love to hear from you. See contact form below.
Our impact
Our 2025 impact outlines strong progress in delivering the city’s Sport and Physical Activity Strategy, demonstrating how increased participation is contributing to healthier, happier communities.
Over the year, Manchester;
- Strengthened its leadership in sport, health and wellbeing by expanding inclusive participation pathways
- Invested in high‑quality active environments
- Improved resident‑focused communications
- Embedded low‑carbon practices
- Deepened health‑linked delivery through the Physical Activity Referral Service (PARS) and wider sector partnerships.
We Love MCR..... beyond movement
Our commitment extends beyond fitness into the heart of community resilience. We partner with We Love Manchester to transform local challenges into opportunities for collective healing and growth.
Proud member of GM Active
Manchester Active is a proud member organisation of GM Active. A collaboration of 12 amazing leisure and community organisations from across Greater Manchester that are all part of the same movement with a shared aim – to get more people physically active.
GM Active manage the majority of the publicly-owned leisure and physical activity assets on behalf of 10 local authorities.
