The project SPAcE (Supporting Policy and Action for Active Environments) aims to integrate active transport programmes (i.e. walking to school, cycle to work schemes etc.) into public policy across the European Union. The overall aim of the SPAcE is to make the healthy choice the easy choice through creating sustainable urban active environments in cities and towns across the European Union.

The project which is a three year project co-funded by the Sport: Collaborative Partnerships action of the Erasmus+ Programme ends on 31^st December 2017 and has now published it final results online which is collection of research reports, guidance documents and Action Plans to support the development and promotion of urban active environments in towns and cities across Europe.

The SPAcE partnership which have co-produced the final results has an impressive collection of partners including regional governments from Latvia, Romania, Spain and Greece; higher education institutions from the UK (Gloucestershire and Oxford), Switzerland and Greece; non-profit government funded organisation from Finland, plus an NGO from Italy.

The final main results of the project are now available on the SPAcE project website:

• Supporting Policy and Action for Active Environments – Environments for physical activity in Europe a review of evidence and examples of practice
• How to create an Urban Active Environment (UActivE) Action Plan – Lessons learnt and case studies from five European cities from the SPAcE EU project
• Measuring the value of an Urban Active Environment, using the WHO Health Economic Assessment Tool (HEAT)

The final UActivE Action Plans developed for the 5 EU towns/cities of Trikala (Greece), Castilla-La Mancha (Spain), Brasov (Romania), Palermo (Italy) and Tukums (Latvia) can also be downloaded together with supporting documents to assist with the UActivE Action Plan development process

Project partners aim that the final results of SPAcE can provide key sustainable and relevant resources to support government agencies, municipalities NGO’s and stakeholders in the field of physical activity and urban planning to increase the physical activity level of the local environment and communities, in order to support and encourage social inclusion through more active participation. Importantly, results from the SPAcE project will evidence the lessons learnt from creating a UActivE Action Plan in order to support other cities and regions to implement this process in order to develop a UActivE.

SPAcE partners include: University of Gloucestershire (UK – Coordinator), University of Oxford (UK), University of Thessaly (Greece), University of Zurich (Switzerland), LIKES Foundation for Sport and Health Science, Fit for Life Program (Finland), Castilla La Mancha Regional Government of Education (Spain), Tukums Municipality (Latvia), Brasov Metropolitan Agency for Sustainable Development (Romania) and the Municipality of Trikala (Greece).

For more information about the work to develop the UACtivE Action Plan in Palermo please contact: rosina.ndukwe@cesie.org.