Derby’s Beat the Street campaign is off on the right foot this week as more than 12,000 people have signed up to take part in the six-week physical activity game.

Beat the Street is a free challenge for the whole community, including schools, workplaces and community groups, to see how far local residents can walk, run, scoot, wheel or cycle in return for points and prizes. So far participants have clocked up more than 4,000 miles with the total mileage increasing rapidly.

A socially-distanced kick-off event was held at Derby City Football Club with mascot Rammie and Beat the Street's Beattie to launch the game, preceded by launch events at Chellaston Junior School and St Martin’s School.

There are 261 Beat Boxes placed on lampposts around Derby for the six-week game that concludes on Wednesday, 12th May. Simply hover your fob (for children, distributed via their primary school) or card (for adults) near the Beat Box to score points for your team. You must hover your card over one Beat Box to start your journey, and then tap another within an hour to score 10 points. The further you travel, the more points you’ll score for your team.

Beat the Street aims to encourage people to walk, run and cycle more instead of taking the car. It helps people explore their local community and discover routes and areas they may not know. It’s free to take part in Beat the Street and is open to anyone in the community, of any age, who would like to get more active or would like to get to know the town better.

There are fantastic prizes for the top teams across four leaderboards for schools and community groups & workplaces, with total points and average points leaderboards so that teams of all sizes are in with a chance of winning prizes! School teams can win prizes of up to £300 of sport or book vouchers on each leaderboard while community teams will be eligible to win up to £300 worth of sports and fitness vouchers.

Beat the Street is being delivered by Intelligent Health and is funded by the National Lottery and Sport England on behalf of Move More Derby and Derby City Council.

Owen Swift, Physical Activity & Sport Manager at Derby City Council, said:

“We all know walking is beneficial for mental and physical health. We were born to walk and to explore too. Using our feet to take ourselves outdoors provides the perfect reason to give our brains and eyes a rest from the phone or computer and to experience the real environment that surrounds us.”

Each week of the competition has a different theme, so keep an eye on the weekly newsletters and on social media for news on what’s happening and how to score bonus points. Next week will be ‘Go Explore’, encouraging players to get to know parts of Derby they may not be familiar with.

For more information, visit the Beat The Street website or follow @BTSDerby on social media.