Beat the Street Paisley off to a fantastic start as more than 6,127 people sign up to take part

Paisley’s Beat the Street campaign is off to a fabulous start this week as a total of 6,127 people have signed up to take part in the six-week physical activity game.

Beat the Street challenges communities, including schools, workplaces and community groups, to see how far they can walk, run, scoot, wheel or cycle in return for points and prizes. So far, participants have clocked up more than 8,946 miles with the total mileage increasing every day.

The game helps people explore their local community and discover routes and areas they may not know and is free to take part and open to anyone in the community, of any age, who would like to get more active.

A total of 69 Beat Boxes have been placed on lampposts around Paisley and participating teams are competing to clock up the highest number of active travel miles with prizes of vouchers for books or sports equipment for the teams that travel the furthest.

Currently Todholm Primary School leads the total points leaderboard, with St Charles Primary School and Lochfield Primary School in second and third place.

Depute Provost Cathy McEwan attended the launch and said: “While it’s a fun game with prizes to be won, everyone who takes the time to walk, cycle or run every day is a winner as they’re doing great things for their health.

“We want to work with our communities to support them to live healthier lives and we will continue to do what we can to provide exciting, sustainable travel options for those in the area who wish to leave the car at home.”

There’s still time to join in the game as the competition goes on until 12 October – local people just need to pick up a card from a distribution point at www.beatthestreet.me/paisley and get tapping.

Each week of the competition has a different theme, and weekly newsletters and social media posts will keep people informed of what’s happening and how to score bonus points.

The game was invented by Dr William Bird, who developed the Beat the Street game as a way of getting people to incorporate physical activity into their daily lives. Beat the Street also aims to encourage people to walk, run and cycle more instead of taking the car.

Beat the Street Paisley has been commissioned by Renfrewshire Council with support from Paths for All’s Smarter Choices, Smarter Places programme. It is being delivered by Intelligent Health.

More information including where to collect a free game card is available at www.beatthestreet.me/paisley or on social media @BTSPaisley