Take urgent action now to improve walk to school

Living Streets has delivered a report to the Transport Minister, Jesse Norman asking for urgent action to be taken to improve the walk to school.

The Living Streets report, Swap The School Run For A School Walk, sets out 21 recommendations to enable more children to walk to and from school. It includes a call for cars to be banned from the school gates at drop off and pick up times.

More than 2,000 primary schools in the UK are situated in pollution hotspots, putting pupils’ health at risk, and new research by Living Streets shows that 42 per cent of parents are concerned about levels of air pollution around their child’s school.

Dirty air can cause debilitating diseases and hasten death, currently contributing to 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. Air pollution is harmful to everyone but for children, the risk to their health is even higher as their exposure is much greater and they absorb and retain pollutants in the body for longer. Motor vehicles are the biggest source of air pollution and one in four cars on the road at peak times are on the school run.

The charity for everyday walking says that cutting unnecessary car journeys and enabling more families to walk to school must be part of the solution.

www.livingstreets.org.uk

(Published by Living Streets: 21 May 2019)