Walking children to school is of benefits them and parents - Stephen Edwards

Health experts recommend that children aged two to four are active for at least three hours a day to stay healthy, but 90 per cent don’t achieve that. Walking to or from nursery is an easy way to get those minutes to add up, for both children and their families.

Many of us are now working from home and missing the opportunity that the commute offered for us to get active. However, it also means many of us no longer have to rush to catch specific trains or to beat the traffic, freeing us up to instead spend that time walking our children to school. So, not only do our children benefit from being more active, but we do too.

On top of that it provides quality family time and the chance to add a bit of structure to our working day, helping to maintain a healthy work/life balance. Walking more is a resolution we can all make – and actually keep.

It was fantastic to join the Mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, to launch Little Feet at Lapage Primary School and Nursery in Bradford. Together we saw how excited these pupils are to start walking more, helping to reduce congestion outside their nursery school and do their bit to protect the planet. The programme will support 30 nurseries and schools across West Yorkshire this year, adding to the 90 schools in the region that we are already working with to run WOW – our walk to school challenge for primary schools.

At Living Streets, we have been running our walk to school programme across the UK for over 20 years. Last year, our Walk to School Outreach programme saw 13.4 million new walking trips created and 2.5 million miles of car km removed from our roads across England. With fewer cars on our roads, it means less congestion, less road danger and less air pollution. Swapping our short car journeys for walking trips is an easy way to help fight climate change, while we reap the personal benefits of healthier minds, bodies and wallets.

Of course, we know that getting more people walking and wheeling isn’t just about encouragement, we must enable people to make those changes. That’s why we work with local authorities to help make sure our streets are safer and inviting for walking. Recently we’ve worked with Leeds City Council to evaluate their School Streets – where streets outside schools are closed to non-resident cars at drop off and pick up times. This work saw us analyse the success of individual sites and make recommendations for how future School Streets might be enhanced. In March this year, we will be discussing how we create public spaces that encourage walking at our seventh National Walking Summit, which I’m very pleased to say is happening in Leeds.

Stephen Edwards is the chief executive of walking charity Living Streets.