THE CHARITY Living Streets Cymru is calling for local authorities to prioritise making school walking routes safer, to help to prevent problems associated with a lack of walking, including child obesity and air pollution.
Research carried out by Living Streets shows that almost 60 per cent of parents are worried about speeding cars outside of school and a third are worried about their child’s safety because of overcrowding outside of the school gates.
A huge 82% of parents think there should be more schemes to make the walk to school safer and easier.
This comes at a time when one in three children leave primary school overweight or obese, and just one in five children achieves the recommended daily amount of physical activity.
Following a generation-long decline in the number of children walking to primary school (from 70% to 47%), and the recent publication of the historic Wales Active Travel Act, Living Streets is now urging local authorities to act and encourage more families to walk to school.
Rachel Maycock, Wales Manager, Living Streets says: “The walk to school is a great way of children getting active in the morning before school. It’s easy, free, accessible and a great way for children to get some regular exercise.
“It’s essential that local authorities make all our streets, including those around schools, safe places to walk, through installing 20mph speed limits and safe crossings.
“We know that a lot of parents are put off walking to school because of high levels of traffic outside the school gates. The more of us walking to school, the safer conditions will be.”
May is National Walking Month, Rate Your Walk during May 2017 and you will be in with a chance of winning a UK city break for you and your family.
The charity is urging members of the public to rate their walk to school via www.livingstreets.org. uk/rateyourwalk
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