Are you an outdoor explorer? There’s a new game on the block which gives you the chance to win prizes from local businesses, all whilst improving your health!

On Wednesday 17th May, Intelligent Health launched their interactive game, called Beat the Street, at St Mary’s Church of England Primary School, Writhlington.

Beat the Street is a game which encourages physical activity in local communities and Intelligent Health have been busy installing ‘Beat Boxes’ on lamp posts within the Somer Valley. These act as checkpoints where you can pick up points. Twenty points will be awarded if you visit two Beat Boxes within an hour, with an extra ten points awarded for each checkpoint reached thereafter.

There are forty seven Beat Boxes in the game, which are spread across Timsbury, Peasedown, Paulton, Midsomer Norton, Radstock and Writhlington. Players can walk, cycle, scoot or wheel their way through the area to collect points.

At the event, Intelligent Health gave a short presentation on the scheme before taking everyone on a demonstration walk to test out the game.

Many representitives were on hand at the launch to play along, including Bath and North East Somerset Councillor, Sarah Warren, Cabinet Member for Climate and Sustainable Travel.

During the presentation, Councillor Warren’s comments were decidedly positive regarding the initiative, “anything we can do to increase enthusiasm for walking and cycling improves our environment and air pollution levels.”

“Plus, we are supporting local. There are prizes to be won during the event, with goodies coming from local businesses.”

Though the game is new to the Somer Valley, Beat the Street has been up and running for almost ten years, and the positive results on physical and mental health were evident in the video example shown at the Somer Valley launch.

Attendees were introduced to Nancie and her Dad, who took part in Beat the Street when it payed a visit to Middlesborough. It encouraged the pair to get out on their bikes every evening, collecting points on route. Nancie’s dad, James, said that thanks to the game Nancie was “very confident on her bike and fitter than ever”.

Commissioned by The Active Way, which is led by Bath and North East Somerset Council, the game encourages people of all ages to incorporate physical activity into their lives through a fun, six week challenge.

Following the introduction, attendees were joined by pupils from St Mary’s School before heading on a walk down to Southfield Adventure Play Area, where a checkpoint awaited. The first Beat Box, situated directly outside the school, was scanned by all prior to the journey.

Everyone was given a card before setting off. These can be picked up by new players from distribution points in the area. There is the option to play via a smartphone app, too.

After a sunny stroll, the group arrived back at the starting point at the school, scanning their cards for a final time on the journey - thirty points were awarded to each player for their efforts, which only took twenty minutes of their time.

Upon return, Tim Rawlings, Project Manager for The Active Way (led by Bath and North East Somerset Council), said: “St Mary’s is a nice local school that wanted to be engaged in the project. We contacted all the schools in the area who signed up to be teams, there are fifteen in the Somer Valley in total that have signed up, and this one has been really keen since inception”.

Dan Tremain, Active Partnership Manager at Intelligent Health was certainly happy to see how keen staff and pupils were, and was pleased with the reception from the wider community, too.

“When we checked earlier, we had fifteen hundred people signed up and playing so far. Obviously, this is only the first day of the game. We anticipate that we’ll hopefully get to four thousand players as a minimum.”

Already off to a flying start, at the time of printing, the game had 3150 players signed up, so the Intelligent Health team are well on their way to achieving their goal of improving community health.

Keen participants can sign up at any time throughout the six weeks, via the Beat the Street website.

“Once you’re on there, it’ll explain how you can get a card, or you have the option to use our app. Also, when you sign up you have a chance to get involved in a team, or you can create your own! Plus there’s the chance to win prizes at the end. The leaderboards are viewable online so you can keep up with other’s scores”, explains Dan.

Players make small lifestyle changes throughout the six weeks. Beat the Street helps people to maintain the changes made through the game by recommending local events and campaigns, as well as offering ongoing support.

The Active Way are keen to keep up the community engagement after the event ends, too.

“We will try to join up with other similar activities and promote them through the school networks and really take advantage of the engagement that we have through the Beat the Street programme, and children’s willingness to get involved and be out thereon the street. There are lots of plans that we can start developing and conversations we can start having, especially with sport-based activities in the area”.

The game will also provide opportunity for players to provide feedback on their active travel routes, so any issues discovered can be alerted to Bath and North East Somerset Council through player engagement.

“We provide the opportunity for players to take a pre-game and post-game health survey. In these, players can fill out a range of different questions about their health, but they also have the opportunity to provide feedback about infrastructure. That will then be used by The Active Way and shared with the Council, all of that information and insight is really valuable to local authorities”, says Dan.

Tim agreed that the data would be beneficial to the Council, adding, “there’s a really great cycle network throughout the region, but it’s about connecting the dots sometimes. Even if we think about between Radstock and Frome, for example, there are big gaps in the infrastructure that we really need to try and work with our partners to deliver and make more accessible”.

“Though we know the cycle tracks are being used, we want to try and get more people on them, walking and cycling.

It’s good to get feedback to be able to make that more inclusive and as easy to use as possible, so people recognise the benefits of active travel”.

After seeing all the children off at the end of the school day, The Journal also caught up with St Mary’s Primary School headteacher, Cathie Lampert.

“The heart of St Mary’s is health and happiness, excellence, aspirations, resilience and togetherness. Health and happiness has to be the forefront, without that children will not learn.”

“Beat the Street is excellent because it encourages our children and their families to get involved in walking, scooting and cycling between the boxes, and gets them involved with their local area. It motivates them to be active, to be healthy, and to be happy too.”

If you’d like to take part in Beat the Street, visit www.beatthestreet.me/somervalley/ to find out more, including information on your nearest distribution point, where you can pick up a card and get started.