School travel plan

Suffolk County Council has a team responsible for promoting school travel plans and encouraging safe, active and sustainable travel to school. The project aims to create travel plans for every school in the county by 2010. Grants and funding are available for participating schools.

Contact

Email: schooltravelplans@suffolk.gov.uk

The way in which children travel to school can have a great impact on their lifestyle. Greater numbers of parents taking their children to and from school by car is contributing to increased congestion around the school, higher levels of exposure to pollution and risk to pedestrians and cyclists.

A school travel plan can help to address these problems, by setting out a number of practical ways to reduce the number of car trips made to a school, to encourage more walking and cycling and to improve safety on the school journey.

The travel plan aims to raise awareness among pupils and parents of the harmful effects of increasing car use on children's health, safety and independence. The travel plan process aims to win "hearts and minds" by raising awareness of the implications of travel choice and the benefits of encouraging more sustainable travel to school.

The school will work together with the travel plan adviser and other interested parties such as the Police, Education Directorate and the District council to identify ways in which to overcome the barriers that currently stop parents and children from walking and cycling to school.

School Travel Plans is a joint initiative backed by the Department for Education and Skills and the Department for Transport. Upon successful completion of the travel plan, schools will be awarded a capital grant to purchase items to support and maintain sustainable travel to school. These may include secure cycle shelters, parent waiting facilities or cycle lockers for storage.

There are a large number of varied initiatives that schools can undertake such as a walking bus, "park and stride" (parking away from the school at designated sites and walking the remainder), cycle training and permit scheme and a voluntary car lift share scheme. Each school will develop a unique action plan of ongoing work with the ultimate aim of reducing car dependency and increasing the number of children travelling to school in a healthy and safe way.