I visited O’Tooles Health and Fitness gym on Shields Road in Byker. O’Tooles was created to provide the North East with a place where promising boxers can be trained to a professional standard. Glenn McCrory – the first North-East boxer to become a world champion in 1989 – has been using O’Tooles gym as a base to train exciting up-and-coming boxers.

Glenn McCrory showed me around the gym’s state-of-the-art facilities and explained the role that O’Tooles is playing in the local community to get young people active. With the NHS estimating that over a quarter of children in England are overweight or obese, it is important to give young people the opportunity to engage with sport and enjoy the benefits of physical activity.