Labour MP Phil Brickell was visiting Rock Over Climbing in Bolton when it hosted the Lancashire Adventure Film Festival in February and met with its director Tom Stewart. 

“We were discussing reaching out to schools and groups, and they told me they had this initiative they were looking to roll out to provide PE or extracurricular activities to a couple of primary schools that did not have access to any of that,” Stewart told C+D. 

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The climbing centre has previously worked MCRactive to offer those on free school dinners get free climbing lessons, as well as organisations supporting children having difficulty with mainstream education. 

It also works with Access Sport to “provide more bespoke sessions for people with disabilities” and holds the annual Greater Manchester School Climbing Championships. 

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“We were approached to see if we could facilitate the activity and put together a package of how we could work with them to deliver it at our end,” Stewart added. 

Brickell organised a day for Washacre Primary Academy, Tonge Moor Primary Academy and St Bede C of E Primary Academy to send eight students to sessions at the centre. Cohens Chemist organised and paid for the travel to the climbing centre for all schools. 

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The pharmacy told C+D it was “thrilled the children had such a positive experience”. 

Since the initiative, Stewart said Rock Over Climbing has had “a couple of schools come in to see if they can have something similar” to what Brickell organised. 

It comes after a pharmacy piloted a free shuttle service with a taxi company to get patients from one small Staffordshire town to another to access the pharmacy on a Sunday.