More schools take advantage of walking or wheeling to school

Following it’s launch in January, 16 primary schools in the borough are now taking part in a project to get students walking or wheeling to school, with excellent results.

The project called ‘WOW’, is run by charity Living Streets and sees children self-report how they get to school every day using the interactive WOW Travel Tracker. By travelling sustainably (walk/wheel, cycle, or scoot) once a week for a month, they get rewarded a badge.

The benefits of WOW include reducing traffic around schools and instilling healthy habits in children by encouraging them to travel actively to school, rather than by car. Since the borough’s schools begun participating in the project, over 130,000 active travel journeys have been logged, by over 4000 pupils.

In fact, overall active travel rates to school have shown an increase of 30%, and a nearly 30% decrease in using the car to travel all the way to school, to match.

With less cars on the road and therefore, less emissions; the project is an important step to reducing the borough’s impact on the climate, as is set out in the council’s Climate Emergency Action Plan.  

By 2025, the government would like to see 55% of children walking or wheeling all the way to school. So far in the borough, the average has increased to 54.1%, up 13% since the beginning of the project. It is hoped that with continued engagement and more schools signing up, the target set by the government will be surpassed.

Quesir Mahmood, Executive Member for Growth and Development said:

It’s so encouraging to see children take a lead on increasing the amount of physical activity they do. Walking or wheeling to school is an easy way to do that and I thank Living Streets for the work it has done so far across the borough. There’s no reason why all the borough’s primary schools can’t take part, and I look forward to seeing the numbers increase.

The sixteen schools currently taking part in the project are:

• Audley Junior School
• Cedars Primary School
• Daisyfield Primary School
• St Barnabas CofE Primary Academy, Darwen
• Longshaw Community Junior School
• Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School
• Roe Lee Park Primary School
• St Antony’s RC Primary School
• St Barnabas and St Paul’s Church of England Voluntary Aided Primary School
• St Cuthbert’s Church of England Primary School
• St James’ Church of England Primary School, Stopes Brow
• St James’ Church of England Primary School, Earl Street
• St Joseph’s Roman Catholic Primary School, Darwen
• St Luke and St Philips Church of England Primary School
• St Stephen’s Church of England Primary School
• Sudell Primary School

If you would like your school to take part, please ask one of the school’s teachers to contact the project co-ordinator, Daniel O’Connell on daniel.oconnell@livingstreets.org.uk.