Putting physical activity – described by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges as a miracle cure – at the heart of community infrastructure is the only long-term solution to saving the NHS from bankruptcy.

With its unrivalled network of facilities and growing expertise in behaviour change, the physical activity sector is perfectly placed to take the strain off our overstretched health service.

We’ve already seen countless examples of how integrated health and wellbeing services can transform communities when aligned to the facilities and services of the physical activity sector. That’s why I’m calling for the government’s Industrial Strategy to lead a £1bn regeneration scheme to transform the UK’s ageing fleet of leisure centres into new community wellness hubs.

These wellness hubs would combine pools, gyms and sports halls, with GP drop-in centres, libraries and police services, to create a one-stop-shop for public services.

Yes, it’s a big ask at a time of tight budgets. But this level of investment is a drop in the ocean compared to the cost to the NHS of a full-blown inactivity epidemic.

It’s a fraction of the cost of the £55bn HS2 project or the £17bn Third Runway, and yet it could save thousands of lives.

The government’s Industrial Strategy must recognise that our public health infrastructure is just as important as our train or plane networks. With government borrowing costs at an all-time low, now is the perfect opportunity to invest in our future. Transforming our infrastructure to inspire movement can catalyse the cultural shift needed to inspire a more active Britain.

Baroness Tanni is absolutely right in her call to turn leisure centres into community wellness hubs. It’s a sensible use of public money given that 1 in 6 deaths is caused by inactivity – the same as smoking.

In fact, Sport England has been working in this way for over four years. Evidence shows that more people use these facilities and we can lever in up to £10 of additional investment for every pound we spend.

Take the Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood Hub in Warrington. It’s much more than a leisure centre. It provides great opportunities to play sport and get active, but that’s in addition to taking out a library book, dropping the kids at the crèche or seeing your GP. It opened in 2012, replacing three tired and costly facilities in the area. Visits are up from 200,000 a year to over 1.2 million, while operating costs have gone from deficit to surplus.

For many people, sports centres can seem like an alien environment, presenting a barrier to participation. And GPs don’t always think of physical activity when they reach for their prescription pad. Collaboration and co-location are the ways forward. Bringing the right public services together can be a game-changer, with incredible results. Sport England wants to continue this work with our partners in local government and the sport and leisure industry.

“Tanni Grey-Thompson’s call for £1bn to be invested in leisure centres is most welcomed. Virtually every District and Borough Council will have examples of tired, run-down sport and leisure centres that have come to the end of their useful life.

At a time when local authorities have come under unprecedented financial pressure, many may struggle to articulate the business cases to secure investment without somehow bringing into play the wider savings that can be delivered elsewhere within the public sector system, most notably, but not exclusively, the NHS.

We all know that investing in the prevention of illnesses is essential, if the cost burdens on the NHS and wider social care system are to be reduced. By integrating and co-producing key lifestyle services – such as leisure, health and fitness, social care, learning, libraries and GPs – under one roof we can collectively make a bigger impact. We need to go in with our eyes open to the different challenges within every local authority and clinical commissioning group, as well as factoring in the massive efficiencies that have already been achieved within the leisure and sport sector.

However, the availability of significant levels of government funding has the potential to bring about step change, accelerate developments and encourage longer term thinking within  localities, giving us the chance to replicate on a national level some of the fantastic integrated wellbeing centres already dotted around the country.

We must think big. The ambition is to be applauded and CLOA is keen to support it.

At LiveWire, we believe that wellness services operating from large integrated community facilities can act as the preventative frontline to support the NHS and help to improve levels of inactivity.

We’ve found that individuals who utilise integrated services are more likely to succeed from their initial referral from a health professional to a consultation with a lifestyle or fitness advisor. This smooth and seamless journey helps individuals reach their end goal quicker, making them more likely to stay on their programme for the long term.

Since our first fully integrated facility, Orford Jubilee Neighbourhood Hub, opened in 2012 more than four million people have come through its door to access leisure, health or library services. Following on from the success of the hub model in Orford, we’re in the process of developing two more neighbourhood hubs in other areas of Warrington.

Thanks to funding from national bodies including Sport England, the Football Foundation and Lawn Tennis Association, we’ve invested £16m to transform the existing 1970s-era Great Sankey Leisure Centre into a fully integrated hub. This will be our first dementia-friendly facility which will support the ageing population in west Warrington when it opens in late 2017.

We have also secured investment for a smaller hub facility to serve the areas of Bewsey and Dallam. This newly-built hub will provide a much needed health and leisure provision for these communities who are among the most deprived in Warrington.

In the future, we plan to integrate even more services into our four existing single-use leisure sites to broaden our offer.

As the RCGP clinical priority lead for physical activity and lifestyle, I was delighted to be present at the 2016 ukactive Summit where Baroness Grey-Thompson made her impassioned plea for a more joined up, prevention-focused response to the inactivity epidemic. The scale of the problem must not be underestimated, with the UK lagging well behind our European neighbours when it comes to being adequately active for good health.

Grey-Thompson’s ambitious plans, calling for the government to invest in hubs where people can seek medical advice, as well as getting their daily ‘dose’ of activity, very much aligns with our own aims.

We believe a more joined up approach between the leisure sector and primary care is a vital component in the battle against preventable disease. We have already forged strong links with ukactive, the Richmond Group of charities and Sport England, all of whom share the common goal of getting the least active in society more active and will be rolling out resources and initiatives in the near future, aimed at encouraging dialogue and collaborative working between GP teams and local leisure providers.

While we fully support the call for funding outlined by Grey-Thompson it must come as part of a multipronged approach.

GPs are working beyond capacity and don’t have the time to effectively discuss physical activity and other lifestyle behaviour changes with patients. Therefore we would add to the call for the creation of wellness hubs the need for a substantial increase in real time spending in primary care focused on educating and empowering patients to take greater ownership of their health.