Barnet's 'Fit & Active Barnet' (FAB) initiative has seen a significant surge in participation, with over 58,000 residents now signed up for its FAB Card. The program, which aims to create a more active and healthier borough, is set to expand its reach with a new action plan for 2026-2027.
The Health and Wellbeing Board met on Thursday, March 19, 2026, to review the progress of the FAB Partnership. Since April 2025, the initiative has seen a 14% increase in FAB Card registrations, with residents benefiting from free or discounted access to leisure facilities. FAB Card holders receive a range of benefits, including free swimming for under-8s and £1 swimming for 8–15-year-olds. Since April 2025, residents have claimed over 14,000 free or £1 swims. The FAB Carers Card provides additional support such as free swimming for carers.
The FAB strategy, built around three pillars – People, Place, and Partnerships – has facilitated numerous community engagement campaigns and events. Besides National Walking Month and the Summer of Sport, other campaigns and events delivered to encourage physical activity included UK Day for Older People (October) and the International Day for Persons with Disabilities (December). The borough's leisure operator, BETTER, reported over 1.2 million leisure centre visits and the completion of more than 800 programs through its Healthwise initiative.
The draft FAB Action Plan for 2026-2027 outlines a commitment to further expand opportunities and enhance the quality and accessibility of active spaces. The plan aims to increase FAB Card registrations, with a target of continued growth in resident engagement, and to increase awareness of FAB and physical activity opportunities and active environments across the borough through delivered campaigns. Specific targets include developing a FAB comms timeline, continually evolving the FAB Hub with content reviews at least quarterly, identifying investment and collaborative working opportunities for new interventions, and auditing local provision to identify gaps.
FAB is integrated across a range of key policy documents to ensure it remains at the forefront of local decision-making. Examples of this alignment include integration within the Parks and Open Spaces Strategy, Economic Development Framework, Placemaking Framework, Saracens Foundation Strategy, the Children and Young People Physical Activity Needs Assessment, and the emerging Youth Strategy. Foundations have also been established to embed FAB within local health pathways and policy frameworks, such as alignment with programmes like the NCL Cancer Programme, the Cardiovascular Disease Prevention Programme, the National Diabetes Prevention Programme, the Healthy Weight Action Plan, the Food Plan, Healthy Early Years, Healthy Schools London, and the Resilient Schools Programme.
Strategies to promote active travel include working collaboratively across the borough's Active Travel Network to identify and promote existing opportunities that encourage active travel. This also involves delivering active travel campaigns aligned with national awareness dates such as National Walking Month, Clean Air Day, and World Car Free Day. Active travel is also being integrated within policy and decision-making processes.
Planned actions to strengthen partnerships with sports governing bodies and grassroots clubs include establishing improved relations with National Governing Bodies (NGBs) to identify strategic priorities, geography, demographics, facility development, and investment opportunities for Barnet. Additionally, there are plans to improve engagement with the borough's grassroots club sector to establish better joined-up working opportunities and raise awareness of the local offer, including analyzing the findings of a club survey to develop improved working relationships and promotion of the local offer.
Concrete steps will be taken to embed dementia-friendly and mental health-supportive principles within leisure facilities and community settings. This includes promoting dementia-friendly principles and the accreditation scheme to clubs and community-based providers, encouraging alignment to enhance delivery and facilities. BETTER operates dementia-friendly facilities and offers a varied program to support residents and carers with dementia to be physically active. Additionally, BETTER will adopt and align with the Barnet Charter for Mental Health, offering a varied program that supports residents with a mental health condition to be physically active, and promoting this charter to clubs and community-based providers.
Councillor Alison Moore, Chair of the Health and Wellbeing Board, highlighted the importance of these initiatives in addressing health inequalities and the concerning trend of stalled life expectancy across the borough. The board agreed to note the progress and achievements of the FAB partnership and to provide comments on the draft action plan for future collaboration. The draft FAB Action Plan for 2026-2027 can be found here. The Health and Wellbeing Board's summary report for 2025-26 is available here.
