Step Up Sunderland under the spotlight - leaderboard revealed and questions asked over scheme

Step Up Sunderland was launched in July 2019 as part of a campaign to get more people active in their day-to-day lives.

This included a push to make Sunderland the UK city that walks the most steps, with an app allowing people to add their steps to a city-wide counter.

According to figures revealed to councillors this month, around 2,370 people had signed up to the initiative at the end of June 2020.

Step Up Sunderland’s official website shows, as of September 17, more than 770,859,150 steps have been tracked since the campaign started.

In a leaderboard ranking different zones across the city, Sunderland North came out on top.

However, one councillor questioned whether the scheme was “worth it” – pointing out less than 1% of Sunderland population was signed up

“We’re talking about this as a bit of a success and it was launched with a lot of fanfare about a year ago now,” said Cllr Dominic McDonough.

“The figures that I have seen suggest that the uptake across the city is less than 1% of the population.

“Certainly maybe in the early days it was a huge success but now the numbers seem to be absolutely through the floor.

“Is this project still worth it? What are we doing to keep people engaged in this?

“Is this something that we should be celebrating as a success when there are so few people getting involved?”

Cllr McDonough was speaking at a recent meeting of Sunderland City Council’s Scrutiny Co-ordinating Committee, which was held via videolink and broadcast on YouTube.

The comments came following a presentation on the council’s performance across various areas, including health schemes.

In a response, the council’s Assistant Director of Digital and Customer Service, Liz St Louis, said more could be done and she would take the councillor’s points back.

“I think the initial work and development work has been completed on the initiative [Step Up Sunderland], it’s very simple and very cost-effective for us just to have that there for residents that do want to use it,” she said.

“We do tend to promote it on a periodic basis and remind people that it is there and I think there’s an opportunity perhaps to do more for those people that do want to use it and it is a useful tool for them.

“Likewise there are other initiatives, the ‘Couch to 5k’ initiative is another one that is promoted that is quite well used.

“It’s just having a range of things that may attract certain residents and appeal to certain people.

“But certainly there is more we can do and I will take that back to colleagues.”

Committee chair Cllr Doris MacKnight, who represents the Castle ward, defended the app.

“I still do the Step Up [Sunderland]. I walk along the beach everyday and I use it all the time – so some of us are still using it,” she added.

For more information on the scheme, visit: www.stepupsunderland.com

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