A FUN initiative which encourages East Renfrewshire residents to ditch the car and get more active has been a runaway success in its first week.

Beat the Street is taking place across the local area until Wednesday, November 11, and is open to anyone in the community, of any age.

Players can pick up a free card from one of the distribution points on the www.beatthestreet.me/eastrenfrewshire website and then join a team.

They then hover these cards over one of 80 special sensors, called Beat Boxes, which have been placed approximately half-a-mile apart on lampposts.

The first Beat Box starts the journey and the next scores 10 points. The further you travel, the more points you score for your team. There are separate leaderboards for school teams, plus another for community and workplace teams.

More than 7,500 people have already signed up and, between them, have walked, cycled, scooted and ran a combined total of nearly 24,000 miles in just one week – the equivalent of travelling all the way to Australia and back.

Currently, Kirkhill Primary School, in Newton Mearns, tops the leaderboard.

Val Caldwell, Beat the Street programme manager for Scotland, said: “We know that people in East Renfrewshire are enthusiastic Beat the Street participants but we are still amazed at the numbers who are playing and how far they have travelled.

“Please spread the word, as we’d love for more people to get involved.”

Beat the Street is being delivered by Intelligent Health on behalf of East Renfrewshire Council, with support from Paths for All’s Smarter Choices, Smarter Places programme and the Scottish Government.

To find out more, visit here or follow @BTSEastRen on social media.