Warwickshire County Council launches Great Big Green Week to encourage active travel

by Adrian Tatum

Warwickshire County Council is supporting residents to embrace active travel as part of its Great Big Green Week, aimed at improving the environment in the region.

Extensive research has shown that a large proportion of the UKs carbon emissions come from car journeys and that close to 60% of these car journeys are under 5 miles. Journeys under this distance lend themselves perfectly to active travel alternatives and Warwickshire County Council’s mission is to encourage as many residents as possible to make this switch.

Talking to residents through its communications for the campaign, the council is promoting the benefits of active travel as:

*30 minutes of exercise every day (the equivalent of walking a couple of miles) has been shown to greatly improve people’s health outcomes;
*Active travel, particularly walking, costs nothing and represents a saving compared to, often fuel-inefficient, short car journeys;
*Less cars on the road mean less harmful CO2 in the air
*Fewer cars also mean a decreased risk of collisions on the roads.

For a long time, Warwickshire County Council has adopted a cradle-to-grave approach to active travel with the road safety and active travel team working extensively with nursery, primary and secondary school settings to ensure that good practice is embedded from as an early age as possible.

For all residents, the Council has launched the #JustOneJourney campaign which encourages people to find out about the benefits of active travel by switching just one short car journey at a time to a more active alternative.

For residents and businesses with a love of cycling as their active travel of choice, Warwickshire County Council have recently partnered with cycling platform, Love to Ride, to embrace the Cycle September campaign.

Leading by example on the active travel front, the Council celebrated Cycle to Work day 2022 over the summer with staff from the authority cycling a collective total of around 350 miles, saving the equivalent of approximately 144,000 grams of carbon compared to the same car journeys.

To mark Great Big Green Week 2022, active travel officers from Warwickshire County Council will be holding a cycling event. This event will be an opportunity for residents to have their bikes looked at by an experienced Dr. Bike mechanic, who will make on-the-spot minor adjustment and advise on any maintenance issues. Additionally, residents can get their bikes security marked and uploaded on to the national Bike Registry database.

Cllr Heather Timms, Warwickshire County Council’s portfolio holder for Environment, Heritage and Culture, said: “The benefits of active travel, particularly are huge both for the individual and for our wider environment.

“For many of us, it might seem difficult, and perhaps daunting, to know where to start as travelling by car, even for short journeys, has become so engrained in our daily lives.

“We are committed to supporting residents to realise that they can start their active travel adventure by switching just one car journey every week to an active alternative such as cycling and we hope that as many of our residents as possible use Great Big Green Week to realise the benefits of this form of travel.”