Charity encouraging children to walk or take bike to school

Charity encouraging children to walk or take bike to school

22 January 2020

A LOCAL politician is encouraging more children to walk or cycle to school — if it is safe to do so.

Rowallane politician Billy Walker is supportive of the drive by Sustrans to reduce the number of children travelling to school by car, but warns that for many who attend primary schools in rural areas especially, walking or cycling to school could place them in danger.

Sustrans — which is a walking and cycling charity — said recent figures published by the Department for Infrastructure show that increasing numbers of children travel to school by car.

Anne Madden from Sustrans described the increasing number as “truly woeful” and said the fact that the number of primary children being driven to school has risen from 29% to 67% since 2013/14 shows “society has a lot more to do”.

She says it is known from surveys that road safety is the main reason why parents drive their children to school, but the charity official said it is these parents who are adding to congestion and air pollution at the school gates.

Ms Madden says there needs to be improvements in infrastructure such as footpaths and traffic crossings to enable more active travel.

The latest government figures have revealed that as many as 54% of primary school pupils who are being driven to school live less than a mile away, which Ms Madden describes as a “very walkable distance”.

She added: “Walking or cycling to school is a simple way of incorporating more exercise into a child’s daily routine. This can help tackle both the obesity epidemic and improve children’s overall health and well-being.”

The Active School Travel (AST) programme which Sustrans delivers has successfully increased the number of pupils walking, cycling and scooting to school, with the charity explaining that it takes on 60 new schools each year. 

However, it says the programme needs to expand and provide more long-term support to school communities in order to turn around these statistics.

In the 2018/19 period, the number of children walking, cycling and scooting to school in the AST programme increased from 35% to 53% while, at the same time, the number of pupils being driven to school fell from 58% to 41%.

Cllr Walker says he is “all for getting more children to walk to school”, but explained that in some parts of Down District, this simply isn’t possible as in many rural areas there are no footpaths. In addition, he said there are no dedicated cycle paths.

“I fully support the work of Sustrans and have worked with the charity on a number of schemes in my own area,” he revealed.

“I recognise that the more children who walk to school, the less congestion there will be and fewer cars sitting in traffic queues pumping dangerous fumes into the atmosphere.”

Cllr Walker said 20mph zones have been introduced outside some local schools, calling for such schemes to be rolled out across all council areas.

He added: “With the emphasis now on people taking more responsibility for their own health and getting fitter, encouraging children to walk to school when it is safe to do so will sew the seed of keeping healthy from an early age and this will stay with them for the rest of their lives.”