Thousands of inactive youngsters across the county have benefited from a £100,000 programme encouraging them to get involved in sport.

The ‘Sportivate’ initiative funded 221 projects and involved around 3,000 young people, aged 11 to 25, over a six to eight week period.

It comes after the director of public health for Bucks delivered a damning verdict to the council last month that one in five young people in the county are “completely inactive”.

Among the projects was a six-session after school course High Wycombe, ‘Fire Fit’, which taught 16 junior firefighters how to perform CPR and use a defibrillator as well as covering topics such as the life of a firefighter and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

The programme is funded by Sport England and run by Leap, the Sport and Activity Partnership for Bucks.

Leap’s Director Mark Ormerod said: “We are thrilled by the success of this year’s schemes.

“Sportivate projects offer free and subsidised coaching in a variety of activities to offer young people a taster of just how fun, enjoyable and social being active can be.

“Importantly, it also creates awareness of how imperative regular physical activity is to their future health and wellbeing.”

Jacqueline Galvin, Sportivate Lead at Leap, said: “Helping these young people maintain healthy lifestyles will in time reduce their healthcare costs to the NHS.

“Increasing physical activity levels have shown to reduce the risk of early death by 20-35 per cent from a range of chronic diseases.”

Sportivate was born out of the London 2012 Sport England Legacy programme, and has been operating in the county for five years.

To find out more visit www.leapwithus.org.uk/sportivate.