FREE sessions in sports centres, a clamp-down on takeaways and giving away thousands of free bikes are among the ideas being considered to help tackle Bradford’s obesity crisis.

Two-thirds of the district’s adults are now overweight or obese, according to health figures, leading to an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, type two diabetes and other potentially fatal illnesses.

And a crack team set up a year ago to tackle obesity in the district has been reporting on its work so far.

Councillor Val Slater, who oversees health at Bradford Council and leads the team, told a meeting of the district’s Health and Wellbeing Board that they had been gathering ideas from other cities around the UK about how to get people more active.

She said they had visited Birmingham, where they joined in an open-air tai chi session, one of a variety of activities offered in 60 of the city’s parks.

She said Birmingham also offered free sessions at sports centres, which Bradford might want to think about.

She said: “They were trying to identify the barriers to activity and some of it was around cost, so in all of their sports centres they offer at least an hour a day that’s free to everyone.

“Obviously, that’s got other costs to us, but if it gives us benefits, it’s worth looking at.”

Cllr Slater (Lab, Royds) said Birmingham City Council had also bought 5,000 GPS-enabled bikes, which it had handed out free-of-charge to disadvantaged people.

She said: “Cynics might say that if you tried that in an area like one of my estates, they will be sold on eBay before you can blink.”

But she said only two had been offered for sale and three stolen, as the GPS system meant the bikes could be tracked.

The meeting heard Wigan had trained up 10,000 volunteers to be ‘health champions’ within their communities, while other areas had set their populations combined weight loss goals or challenges, such as walking the equivalent of the distance to the moon.

Kersten England, chief executive of Bradford Council, said she would like to see the campaign highlighting Bradford’s activity ‘heroes’, warning health chiefs against striking “a slightly lecturing tone”.

She said at some point they should also have a discussion about the “radical, disruptive stuff” they might do to keep Bradford’s population healthier.

She said there was a high density of fast food takeaways within a mile of Bradford Royal Infirmary, with one health boss at the meeting adding that some people would “clock into A&E, go and have a kebab and a curry and then come back”.

Bradford Council already prevents takeaways from opening within 400 metres of a school, children’s centre, play area or park - a policy which attracted criticism from its opposition Conservative group.