THE way sport and leisure schemes are run in Newport should be used as an example for the whole of Wales, an AM has said.

Speaking in the Senedd today, Tuesday, Newport East’s John Griffiths praised Newport Live, which runs publicly-owned facilities in the city such as the International Sports Village and the Riverfront Theatre, and said projects run by the organisation should be used as a blueprint for improving physical activity across Wales as a whole.

Addressing social services and public health minister Rebecca Evans the Labour AM described Newport Live as "a very active and strong partner".

"They’ve recently launched a swimming initiative, Draig D?r, which myself, Jayne (Newport West AM Jayne Bryant) and Jessica Morden, as MP for Newport East, attended last week, which is a programme to engage people more actively and strongly in swimming, to then progress and set goals for themselves, to benefit from coaching and tips to improve their technique and to monitor and facilitate that progress," he said.

"That’s just one of a number of initiatives that Newport Live are taking forward at the current time, which makes them a very active and strong partner in that local initiative."

Responding, Ms Evans said she had been impressed by work carried out by Newport Live when visiting the organisation.

"At the same time, over one site, we had people training at an elite level and also we had groups of school children doing activities and learning about healthy eating and so on," she said.

"So, it had really the whole spectrum just on one site.

"It was really inspirational and exciting.

"It’s certainly something I would encourage other areas to look and learn from what’s been happening in Newport Live, because it really is quite exciting."

Mr Griffiths also said the parkrun scheme could also be used as a model for encouraging activity.

"Parkruns right across Wales are a very strong model of how you can use engagement techniques, such as websites, such as allowing people to monitor their progress by timing their runs and having a range of social activity," he said.

"Perhaps we could look at that model for running and see if it fits other physical activity that would help us get the more active population we want to see."