My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
Yes
I am 18 years of age or above, by the application deadline.
Yes
My organisation is a registered UK entity and has a London-based address.
Yes
My organisation is a non-profit (e.g. school, university, or local authority) — not a for-profit, which can only join as a partner.
Yes
If there is a for-profit organisation as a partner in my initiative, they work on a cost-recovery basis only.
Yes
My solution is implemented at scale, or if not, I have a clear business plan, a minimum viable solution (prototype, pilot, or proof of concept), evidence of access to a lease for the space you are leveraging, and evidence of work or impact in London within your coalition.
Yes
I am aware that, if I am submitting more than one application to a Challenge run by Ashoka and Go! London, only one of them is able to progress through the stages.
Yes
Are you an employee (and their children and grandchildren) of Ashoka or any of its respective affiliates and participating advertising and promotion agencies?
No
I have read and accepted the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Yes
First Name
Andrew
Last Name
Link
Pronouns
He/Him
I would like to receive notifications and updates about Go London!, Ashoka, Ashoka Changemakers, and other Ashoka opportunities.
1
Are you an Ashoka Fellow?
No
Are you applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow?
No
If you are applying from an organization founded by an Ashoka Fellow, please specify the name and organisation of the fellow below.
Lead Organisation Name
Active Meanwhile Limited
Year that you started/ registered your organisation
2025
Initiative Title
The Airbnb of Sport
My initiative is designed for and delivered in London
1
Website URL(s) or Social Media Handles
www.activemeanwhile.com
Initiative Stage
Idea (You have a solid concept and are hoping to get started in the future)
Sectors/Themes: What topic does your project most directly relate to?
Children & Youth
Initiative Summary: Describe your initiative in one sentence
Active Meanwhile is a scalable connector platform that unlocks underused urban spaces across London and transforms them into neighbourhood sport, play and movement opportunities by connecting property owners, local providers and young people through repeatable, low-risk meanwhile frameworks, creating affordable access to activity and a new model of neighbourhood physical activity infrastructure without building new facilities.
The Problem: What problem are you helping to solve and who will benefit the most from your solution? How close are you to the problem and/or community impacted?
London faces a structural coordination failure: empty properties exist alongside young people priced out of local sport and physical activity. The barrier is not simply space or demand; it is the absence of a trusted intermediary able to align incentives, manage risk, assess suitability and standardise access. Across London, many young people want to be active, but access to safe, affordable local space is not evenly distributed. The problem is not a lack of interest, but an unequal system in which spaces, decision-making and costs do not align with local need. Community sports groups report being priced out of facilities, with 68% saying it is harder to access space than before the pandemic, according to Sported. The result is a postcode lottery: lower-income communities face higher travel costs, fewer realistic options and offers that do not always reflect what local young people will use. In Hounslow, our pilot catchment includes around 70,000 children and young people, many facing barriers created by travel costs, expensive memberships and limited neighbourhood provision. At the same time, London has around 25,000 empty commercial properties, according to Savills, representing missed opportunities for youth wellbeing and community life. Active Meanwhile exists to bridge that gap by redistributing access to empty neighbourhood space for 4–24-year-olds facing the highest costs and barriers. We are already working in a live regeneration context in Hounslow, alongside a property partner and local stakeholders, to explore how vacant office space could become a place of activity for young people. Our mission is simple: sport belongs to everyone, everywhere, and access should not depend on whether a neighbourhood can wait years for a new facility to be built.
Your approach: How are you/ will you addressing the problem outlined above? How does your solution unlock or reimagine access to spaces for sport and physical activity? What role do landowners, local authorities, or other decision-making stakeholders play in your approach? We'd love to know about the origin of your idea, and what was your "aha" moment" that led you to take action?
Active Meanwhile unlocks dormant space without building new facilities. We provide the legal frameworks, governance, property expertise and coordination that allow property owners to open underused assets for community use. Our role is to connect property owners, local demand and activity providers through a framework that reduces risk and friction. Our approach has three parts. First, property partnership. We work with owners who have space but lack the knowledge, the model or confidence to bring it into use for sport, movement and community activity. We support negotiations, site reviews, risk management and flexible agreements so activation becomes posssible. Second, youth co-design. Local young people will shape what the space should offer, when it should run, what feels safe and welcoming, and what would make it worth using. This is not bolt-on consultation; it is built into the design. Third, provider mobilisation. We connect the space to grassroots groups, clubs and activity partners who can deliver provision, and where local supply is missing, we help build it. Property owners provide access to space and portfolio opportunities. Local authorities bring place intelligence and alignment with youth, health and regeneration priorities. Community organisations ensure provision reflects local demand and can be delivered safely and credibly. Our “aha” moment came from one of our trustees who established the GB Taekwondo performance programme in an empty factory, which went on to support the sport’s first Olympic medal. The lesson was that underused, temporary, non-traditional space, can be used as sporting infrastructure where there is a will to do so by all parties and that impactful activity does not always require new purpose-built facilities.
Collaboration with young people and the community: In what ways does your initiative engage young people and community members closest to the problem? What role do they play in building the solution you deliver?
In Hounslow, young people and community members will be co-design partners, not passive users. We will place them at the heart of the work through a Youth Advisory Group (YAG) of 8–12 members aged 14–21, recruited through schools, youth networks and community routes. Alongside this, we will run structured youth design sessions so young people can shape decisions before and after activation. This shifts youth involvement from one-off consultation to an ongoing role in shaping the offer. The YAG will contribute in four ways. First, site input. Young people will assess the location and identify whether it feels safe, accessible, relevant and welcoming, and what needs to change if it does not. Second, activation criteria. They will help shape the activities, formats, timings and features that would make the space genuinely usable, not simply available on paper. Third, review and adaptation. The YAG will meet regularly to review attendance, experience and gaps in participation so the model evolves after launch. Fourth, community engagement. They will help identify trusted messengers and routes into the wider youth community so programming grows with local energy. We have strengthened this part of the model through the refinement process. We are now clearer that co-design should not end at concept stage; it should shape delivery and live improvement as well. We have engaged external expertise, particularly in youth co-design, to build a more credible and practical approach. Travel costs will be covered to support equitable participation, and young people will see how their input has shaped what is delivered. By embedding youth into initial activation and ongoing review, we move decision-making closer to lived experience and create spaces that can evolve with the community.
Potential for/Evidence of Impact: How do you imagine your initiative will make a difference in unlocking spaces for and access to physical activity and sport so far? If you have already implemented it, what difference have you made so far? What is the impact your initiative has had , and or what impact do you envision having in the future?
Active Meanwhile is designed to show that unlocking underused space can expand access to physical activity for young people more quickly and at lower cost than relying only on traditional facility development. Our evidence begins with our Brentford pilot, where we are working towards activation of a dormant site and testing the systems needed to make the model repeatable. Our direct participation impact is expected to include: 1) 120,000 projected participation opportunities in Year 1 across the catchment, focused on the 70,000 children and young people in the area; 2) measurement of repeat attendance and minutes of moderate to vigorous activity where appropriate, so we understand sustained engagement rather than one-off exposure; and 3) increased access for local instructors, clubs and grassroots groups priced out of facility hire. Our deeper impact lies at platform level. Our pilot is already showing that owners may be willing to activate underused space, but there is a clear gap in the capacity needed to assess sites, identify viable uses and turn them into activation plans. That is why we are building a property audit function that reviews suitability and social value. Because our model uses existing assets rather than new-build infrastructure, it can create access more quickly and with lower capital intensity. The aim is not just to prove one site can work, but to demonstrate a repeatable framework others can adopt. We now see impact in three layers: direct access and participation, inclusion and experience, and wider systems-change signals. Success is not just more sessions in an empty building. It is also evidence that relationships are changing, barriers are reducing, and underused space is becoming a legitimate part of local physical activity infrastructure.
Innovation: What is different about your initiative compared to other solutions that are already out there? How is your approach original and innovative?
Active Meanwhile is innovative not because we deliver new sports activities, but because we create a new infrastructure model for unlocking access to space. London does not lack buildings, and young people do not lack demand for activity. The structural barrier is coordination: empty spaces sit dormant while grassroots providers and communities struggle to access affordable places to run or join activity. The problem is not simply supply or demand; it is the absence of a trusted intermediary able to align incentives, manage risk and standardise access. Active Meanwhile operates as that coordination layer. We do not build new facilities, we transform underused space into flexible sport, play and movement infrastructure through repeatable frameworks. By standardising leases, insurance, risk protocols and activation templates, we remove friction for property owners and lower barriers for community use. Our innovation lies in four areas: connector platform, repeatable activation, portability and asset-light delivery. We bridge asset owners, local demand and delivery partners, creating access many groups could not secure alone. The model is designed to move beyond one-off projects and work across sites. Legal templates, governance systems, modular infrastructure and operating standards transfer between spaces rather than being reinvented each time. By activating existing assets instead of constructing new facilities, we reduce capital costs, shorten lead times and respond more quickly to local need. Go! London has helped sharpened this further. We are not trying to run more sessions within the existing system we are redesigning how the system connects space, demand, local insight and governance so access can happen faster, more fairly and with less friction.
Viability and Scalability: How are you setting your initiative up for success, and what is your plan to ensure operational sustainability of your solution and its impact? What are your ideas for scaling your initiative to the next level?
Active Meanwhile is designed as a scalable, asset-light coordination platform rather than a single-site intervention. The Hounslow pilot will test and evidence a repeatable framework that can be deployed across multiple sites. Our model scales without capital-intensive facility construction. By standardising meanwhile leases, insurance structures, site reviews and activation templates, we are creating a transferable framework that reduces friction for property owners and enables community access. Operational sustainability will be supported through a blended income model: 1) property owner contributions linked to social value and activation outcomes; 2) affordable hire from local providers; 3) pay-and-play activity income where demand exists; and 4) transferable activation consultancy and audit services. Delivery capacity will come from a central team covering operations, partnerships, project management and youth co-design, supported by specialist partners where needed. Our pilot is also showing the need for dedicated resource to assess sites properly, identify viable uses and understand social value. That audit function strengthens decision-making before costs are committed. Risk is mitigated through a multi-site pipeline, phased costs, diversified income and youth-shaped programming that keeps the offer aligned to demand. Our scaling pathway is; activate and test the framework in Hounslow. Refine the model and expand across additional sites. Develop a coordination platform connecting owners, providers and youth insight across London. The long-term aim is a durable, repeatable model that can scale across London without building a single new facility, while complementing the leisure estate with faster, lower-cost provision.
Roles and Responsibilities: Describe how responsibilities are shared among your team or partners.
Active Meanwhile Limited, a charity, serves as the lead delivery organisation and holds overall responsibility. Responsibilities are shared across the model so that activation is practical, accountable and capable of scaling. Active Meanwhile leads on the overall framework. This includes developing meanwhile lease templates and shared-use agreements, overseeing risk management, insurance and compliance, coordinating local providers, managing data collection and performance monitoring, commissioning or undertaking site reviews, and leading the wider growth strategy. Property partners provide access to vacant assets for pilot activation and work with us on the conditions, timing and parameters for use. Local young people, through the Youth Advisory Group and wider co-design activity, help shape programming priorities, user experience and ongoing review so that provision reflects lived local experience rather than assumptions made elsewhere. Youth sport providers, community organisations and relevant NGBs deliver sessions, lead outreach, share participation data and work to agreed safeguarding and quality standards. Design support partners help translate youth input and operational needs into safe, flexible meanwhile layouts. Wider sector partners support mobilisation, help identify barriers to scale, and open routes to additional sites, specialist expertise and potential delivery relationships. This shared structure matters because Active Meanwhile is not intended to own every part of the system. It's role is to connect and coordinate the parts that already exist but do not routinely work together. By distributing responsibility with our partners in this way, we can manage risk, keep decision-making close to local need, and move from individual site activation towards coordinated multi-site deployment.
Upcoming Milestones: Please provide an overview of the milestones that are required for your initiative to come to fruition/to grow.
Active Meanwhile has secured agreement in principle for pilot space in Hounslow. Our milestones are structured to move from single-site activation to a repeatable model that can be used more widely across London. Phase 1: Framework Formalisation (By Dec 26) Following finalist confirmation, we will finalise meanwhile lease agreements and shared-use frameworks, establish the Youth Advisory Group, engage structured youth co-design activity, and confirm initial spatial layouts and delivery requirements. Building on the Go! London capacity-building process, we will refine the operating model, clarify costs and strengthen the approach to partnership, co-design, site assessment and impact measurement. Phase 2: Pilot Activation and Data Capture (By Feb 27) We will launch youth-informed programming at the Brentford site and begin real-time tracking of participation, repeat attendance, experience and activity levels where appropriate. We will test the blended income model, review how different space typologies perform, and continue to refine the property audit and activation process. Phase 3: Toolkit and Platform Development (By Mar 27) We will consolidate lease templates, operating standards, site review tools and co-design processes into a structured Meanwhile Activation Toolkit. We will also begin developing the prototype digital coordination platform to map site pipelines, provider demand and youth insight across additional boroughs. Phase 4: Expansion (Sept 2027 onwards) Using pilot evidence, we will move from opportunity-led activation to wider deployment across additional sites and partners. The goal is to evolve from a single pilot into a repeatable coordination platform embedded within London’s built environment, unlocking empty spaces as active places for young people across the city.
Capacity-Building Participation and Support Funding: If you were to make it as a finalist, you will be required to participate in an 8-week capacity building programme. If funding/ cost is a barrier to your participation, we may be able to offer up to 10,000 GBP of grant money available to support you. Please break down below, if it is the case, what costs you would incur and you would need covered. (Please note that there are restrictions on how the grant money may be used; please refer to the T&Cs for further details.
If selected as a finalist, we are fully committed to participating in the 8-week capacity-building programme. To engage effectively while progressing our pilot toward scalable deployment, we would require £10,000 to support essential platform development costs. Our request focuses on building the repeatable infrastructure that enables Active Meanwhile to scale beyond a single site and operate at portfolio level. Digital Coordination Platform Architecture (£5,000): Specialist technical consultancy to design the core architecture of our coordination platform. This will define required partner data inputs, governance permissions, site-demand matching logic and user interface structure. The output will be a functional system blueprint and technical specification, forming the foundation for borough-wide deployment and future investment. Legal & Shared-Use Framework Standardisation (£2,500): Specialist legal consultancy to refine and codify meanwhile lease templates, shared-use agreements and risk protocols into a transferable framework. This will create a legally robust, portfolio-ready toolkit that reduces activation friction and accelerates onboarding of new property partners. Youth Co-Design & Governance Facilitation (£2,500): Structured workshops and facilitated sessions with the Hounslow Youth Advisory Group to formalise activation criteria, safeguarding standards and inclusion frameworks. Outputs will include documented governance protocols and youth-informed operating standards transferable across future sites. Travel costs will be covered to ensure equitable participation. This investment accelerates our transition from pilot to a structured, asset-light coordination platform capable of unlocking vacant space across London at scale. All requested funds are directly linked to project development, governance and infrastructure in line with the Challenge Terms & Conditions.
Now that you've explored what it truly means to put young people at the centre, how are you designing your initiative so that young people are genuine co-leaders and co-creators of the initiative?
Through the capacity building and refinement process, we have become clearer that the strength of Active Meanwhile is not simply creating access to space, but creating a repeatable way for local young people to shape what those spaces become. Our original application described youth co-design as an intention, we are now turning it into a structured operating method. We are designing the initiative so that young people act as co-design partners with defined influence over site activation decisions. That means they will not be passive consultees and they will not only be asked for views once a venue is already designed. Instead, at each pilot location we will recruit a diverse cohort of local young people through schools, colleges, youth groups, faith groups, trusted local organisations and council-linked youth services. We will deliberately include both young people who are already engaged in sport and activity and those who are currently not, so that the model has a creative tension to reflect unmet demand as well as existing participation. This responds directly to the challenge’s emphasis on moving beyond “involving” young people toward genuine co-creation by young people, where lived experience shapes what happens.. At each location, we will run a structured youth design cycle. The first stage will be a local design sprint, where young people are introduced to the site, the constraints, the opportunity and the areas in which they can genuinely influence decisions. They will then help shape the activity mix, preferred session timings, access and safety criteria, look and feel, and the barriers that would stop local young people from attending. The second stage will show back what we heard and how we propose to implement it. The third stage, after activation, will bring young people back to review what is and is not working, who is missing, and what should be adapted. This is important because co-design should not end at concept stage and it gives the designers true ownership; it should help shape delivery and live improvement as well. We have engaged external expertise in youth co-design, to help shape and strengthen this approach, and we expect to keep revising and evolving the model as the initiative develops in practice. We are also being more precise about the power of the co-designers. Young people will influence programming, atmosphere, access, local relevance, trusted messengers and review of delivery. They will not be asked to take responsibility for legal, safeguarding or commercial decisions that sit with adults and delivery partners. We believe that clarity increases trust and avoids tokenism. In practice, this means young people will have real ownership over the user-facing decisions that determine whether a space feels welcoming, useful and culturally relevant, while Active Meanwhile and its partners remain accountable for lease structures, compliance and operational delivery. We also want the process to be equitable and visible. Young people will be paid or otherwise properly recognised for their time, and each co-design cycle will end with a feedback session showing what changed as a result of their input. We have learned that co-design becomes extractive when young people are asked for ideas but never see the outcome. Our aim is therefore to make youth influence practical and visible across boroughs, so that the model can scale without becoming generic or tokenistic. This is how we intend to move from youth-informed ambition to a genuine culture of youth-shaped activation.
What partnerships and collaborations are most critical to delivering and sustaining your initiative and how are you building/ plan to build them?
Active Meanwhile exists because the problem we are tackling is a coordination failure. London does not lack young people who want to be active, and it does not lack spaces. The system fails because the organisations controlling those spaces, the groups capable of delivering activity, and the communities closest to the need are not routinely connected through a trusted, low-friction framework. For that reason, partnership design is not an add-on to our model; it is the model. Our goal is to build collaboration at three levels: local delivery partnerships around each site, borough-level alignment with public and community priorities, and portfolio-level relationships that can unlock repeatable deployment. That reflects the “whole system in the room” principle in the Go! London capacity building phase, which emphasises that systems change comes from changing relationships, not simply running programmes within existing silos. Local young people and the community organisations closest to them are central to how the model works in practice. These are partners who shape demand intelligence. Schools, youth groups, faith groups, local connectors and trusted organisations help us recruit beyond the “usual voices” and ensure that activation is grounded in what local young people will actually use. They also help us understand the reasons why some young people may not take part. That includes what feels safe, what times are realistic, what activities feel relevant, what travel is manageable, and how best to reach different groups locally. This matters because good activation is not just about finding space; it is about making sure the offer makes sense to the young people it is meant to serve. Local authorities and wider delivery partners are also critical. Local authorities bring place intelligence, legitimacy, and alignment with wider youth, regeneration, health and community priorities. Activity providers, grassroots organisations and NGBs are another essential part of the model. Where space is unlocked, the initiative will only succeed where there are credible, passionate providers able to run high-quality activities, with the right safeguarding standards and programme design. These partners, some additional ones we’ve met during the Go London! Capacity building process will not just hire space; they will shape what is viable, affordable and repeatable. In some areas, they may already exist. In others, one role of Active Meanwhile will be to connect emerging local demand with providers who could not previously access affordable space. This is one of the ways the model can create broader systemic value: by widening access to infrastructure for providers who are priced out of conventional facilities. Property partners are equally important because they control access to the latent supply of underused urban space, but they often lack the knowledge, delivery model or confidence to bring those spaces into use for sport, movement and community activity. They also move the model from a single-site idea to a scalable London-wide solution. Our role is to create the trust layer between the property sector and the sports and youth sector by standardising legal frameworks, risk protocols, fit-out thinking and activation processes. Our early engagement with partners such as Hadley Property Group, and our wider relationships across the property sector, are important because they show that this idea is not hypothetical: There is real appetite develop an intermediary model that reduces friction for property owners in the same way Airbnb reduced friction between hosts opening their homes for guests: by creating a trusted framework for access, matching, standards and transactions. These partnerships will do more than enable a pilot, they will create a new norm in which Local Authorities, property owners, community providers and local young people work through a repeatable activation framework rather than starting from scratch each time. In doing so, the model can complement existing leisure estate infrastructure by creating faster, lower-cost and more flexible routes to local provision, particularly where traditional facility development is slow, capital-intensive or unlikely to respond quickly to changing local need. Over time, this has the potential to ease pressure on local authorities by reducing the need to rely solely on major capital builds to expand access to physical activity, while also supporting wider public health goals through more local, responsive and preventative provision. In that sense, our partnerships are designed not only to deepen reach in the short term, but to increase legitimacy, reduce costs and create the conditions for sustained systems change.
What are you measuring, how are you measuring it, and what does the data tell you so far (quantitative and qualitative)?
Our approach to impact measurement has been refined so that it does two things at once: prove the model is creating value and improve the model in real time. A useful lesson from the capacity building programme has been the distinction between “measuring to prove” and “measuring to improve”. For Active Meanwhile, both matter. We need enough evidence to show that unused space can become meaningful youth activity infrastructure, but we also need live feedback that helps us adapt each site so that it works for the young people it is intended to serve. We are therefore structuring our measurement around three layers. The first layer is direct participation and access. This includes the number of spaces unlocked, number of sessions delivered, number of participants, repeat attendance, and minutes of moderate to vigorous activity created where appropriate. We also want to track how hyper-local the offer is: for example, whether young people can access activity within their neighbourhood rather than travelling longer distances or paying for expensive memberships. These are important because they show whether we are genuinely increasing access, not just creating a one-off event. Our original proposal projected substantial participation potential from the Brentford/Hounslow pilot catchment, but the refinement phase has reminded us to focus just as much on actual sustained use as on projected scale. The second layer is inclusion, experience and local relevance. Here we will track whether young people feel welcome in the space, whether they feel safe, whether the activity mix reflects what they wanted, and whether specific groups are underrepresented. This may include short pulse surveys, facilitated youth review sessions, attendance by cohort, and simple qualitative feedback gathered through the design sprint and post-activation review loop. The Go! London materials explicitly point to indicators such as the proportion of children and young people who feel welcome, feel safer than in previous settings, and can show evidence of influencing design or delivery. Those indicators are especially useful for us because our success will depend not only on opening doors, but on creating spaces that feel genuinely usable and relevant. The third layer is systems-change signals. This is where we measure whether the model is starting to alter the way the system behaves. We want to track the number of sites offered to us, the time taken from identifying a site to activation, the number of providers able to access space who could not previously do so, the number of property owners or portfolios willing to explore repeatable activation, the reuse of standard legal or operational templates, and examples of local youth input materially changing what is delivered. Over time, we also want to see whether institutions change behaviour, whether partnerships continue, and whether new organisations begin to take ownership of the work. Those are exactly the kinds of signals that the programme materials identify as stronger evidence of systems change than raw activity volume alone. At this stage, what the data tells us is still early, because the initiative is at pilot-development stage rather than full implementation. What we do know already is that there is an increasing appetite among property owners to activate underused space, but a clear gap in our capacity to assess those spaces properly, identify what forms of sport, movement and community use they can realistically support, and translate that into viable local activation plans. Our pilot is reinforcing the need for dedicated resources for property audit functions that can review sites consistently and assess both practical suitability and the potential social value of activation. Our existing relationships with property actors, and the identification of a live pilot context in Hounslow/Brentford, suggest that the issue is not a lack of need or a lack of latent supply, but a lack of coordination mechanisms. Qualitatively, our learning so far is that demand alignment, trust and local legitimacy will be just as important as physical availability of space. That is why we are placing greater emphasis on youth co-design, place-specific feedback loops and measuring who the model is and is not currently working for. Overall, our intention is to measure both the visible outputs of activation and the less visible shifts in relationships, behaviour and institutional confidence. That combination of data and story is what we believe will best show whether Active Meanwhile is on track to deliver not only direct participation benefits, but a deeper change in how London unlocks space for sport and play.
Long-term impact: what lasting systems change are you seeking to create and how will you know when it has happened?
The long-term systems change we are seeking is for underused space to become a normal, trusted and repeatable part of London’s youth sport and play infrastructure. We are not simply trying to activate one empty building or run more sessions in a temporary venue. We are trying to change how the system connects space, demand, risk and local decision-making so that vacant assets can routinely become neighbourhood activity spaces without requiring expensive new-build capital infrastructure each time. This builds directly on our original proposition that London’s core problem is not the absence of space or the absence of demand, but the absence of a trusted intermediary and repeatable framework that can align those things. We see this systems change operating across four dimensions: resources, relationships, rules and mindsets. In resource terms, the change would be that dormant urban space is recognised and used as a civic asset rather than left outside the activity system. In relationship terms, the change would be that property owners, youth communities, local providers and public bodies are connected through a collaborative framework rather than operating in separate silos. In rules terms, the change would be that meanwhile activation becomes easier because standard leases, activation criteria, safeguarding expectations and operational templates already exist. In mindset terms, the shift would be that temporary space is no longer seen as peripheral or second-best, but as a legitimate and valuable part of local sports infrastructure. That framing closely mirrors the systems-change language used in the Go! London programme, including the 5R framework and the emphasis on shifting resources, roles, relationships and rules. In five to ten years, success would look like more than a portfolio of individual meanwhile activations. It would mean that boroughs, developers, asset owners and local communities increasingly expect underused space to be considered as part of the local physical activity ecosystem. It would mean that youth-informed activation criteria are standard practice rather than exceptional practice. It would mean that providers who are currently priced out of formal facilities have new ways to access neighbourhood space. And it would mean that the model can travel: not every site would look the same, but the underlying coordination framework would be recognised, trusted and reusable. One helpful test is the question in the refinement materials: if the initiative disappeared tomorrow, what would remain? Our aim is that what would remain is not only a single activated site, but a change of mindset toward space and the materials required for activation which include tested agreements, risk protocols, working relationships across property and community sectors, stronger norms around youth co-design, and greater confidence among institutions that this kind of activation is possible and worthwhile. In other words, success is not just that Active Meanwhile delivers something itself, but that the system becomes more able to deliver similar outcomes with less friction in the future. We will know that this system change is beginning to happen when we see more space be opened up for activation. That might include more property owners bringing space into the model, more providers able to access it, more borough-level partners using the framework, shorter activation timelines because trust, templates and site management approaches already exist, and stronger evidence that young people are shaping what is delivered. To accelerate this change we are also advocating a more proportionate planning route for temporary sport and recreation uses, under a streamlined Permitted Development under-current regulation. This approach we are advocating and lobbying for at present would reduce unnecessary planning barriers while retaining local oversight. The deepest sign of success, however, would be cultural as much as operational: a shift from seeing sport space as something that must always be purpose-built, expensive and long-term, to recognising that safe, well-managed and time-limited activation of underused space can form a legitimate part of local physical activity, regeneration and wellbeing infrastructure. If that shift takes hold in both delivery practice and planning thinking, then the system has started to move.
Is there anything else you'd like to share with us that you were not able to share in previous questions?
Active Meanwhile is not approaching this challenge from a single-sector perspective. Our group brings together experience gained from across property, sport, local government, leisure operations, regeneration and national governing bodies, giving us a perspective that rarely exists within a single organisation. This is important because Active Meanwhile is trying to connect sectors that rarely collaborate consistently despite often pursuing similar outcomes. Property owners, youth organisations, community providers and public-sector partners operate with different priorities, languages and constraints. A significant part of our value lies in translating between those worlds and creating a practical framework through which they can collaborate. We would also like to acknowledge that the refinement process has changed our thinking. It helped us recognise that youth co-design must be more than a principle; it must be an operating discipline with clear structures, accountability and visibility. It also sharpened our understanding of impact. We are no longer thinking only about activity delivered within an empty building, but about the relationships, confidence and behaviours needed to make the model repeatable. This initiative matters because it offers a faster, lower-cost and potentially more equitable route to increasing access to physical activity. Recent London Sport research estimates that London will require the equivalent of 288 additional sport and physical activity facilities by 2035 and highlights the need to make better use of non-traditional spaces. Active Meanwhile responds directly to that challenge by unlocking underused assets already embedded within communities and connecting them to local demand. This pilot will demonstrate that increasing access is not only about building more facilities, but about coordinating better, listening better and using the city's existing assets more intelligently. We believe London already has many of the spaces it needs. The challenge is creating the trusted framework that allows them to become active places for young people.
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