Bouncing Bucks is the sportiest in the land!

Energetic residents have bucked the national trend by being officially recognised as having the highest levels of sport participation in the land.

Sport England data shows our county is top of the league table for young people and adults who play sport for 30 minutes at least once a week.

And the county is the only one in the country to display a significant increase in participation levels amongst 14-16 year old young people compared to last year.

The findings came from Sport England’s Active People Survey (APS) which measures the number of people taking part in sport for at least 30 minutes each week across England.

But, the news was greeted with a mixed response by Leap, the Bucks and Milton Keynes Sport and Activity Partnership, which described the results as a ‘call to action’ for people to get fit.

Leap director Mark Ormerod, said: “I’m delighted that we have topped the tables with the highest sporting participation rates amongst young people and adults.

“This is certainly a move in the right direction.”

He added: “However there is still much to do with 58.1% of the adult population not taking part in any regular sport. As the home of the Paralympics, the provision of sporting opportunities for disabled people also needs to be improved to live up to the Paralympic legacy dream and this forms a key element of Leap’s 2015-2018 strategy.”

The study found that 43.3% of youngsters aged 14 to 16 and 41.9% adults over 16 took part in sport once a week in Buckinghamshire, including Milton Keynes between October 2013 to October 2014. This represented a 5.6% increase in the measure of adult participation since the survey started in 2006.

Milton Keynes was the only area locally to show a decrease in participation since the last survey, while all the other Bucks districts showed a healthy rise, including Wycombe which saw a whopping ten per cent increase.