Paragraph 300 has a most useful graph, view on the web version. Also see sections on Denmark at end.

254. ...For example, children walking or cycling to school are likely to be fitter than those who journey by car; they are more likely to enjoy and benefit from sport; and the sporting habits they develop at school are then more likely to feed into an active lifestyle when they attain adulthood.
(not only fitter, but according to other research , eg by Tranter in Australia, are better adjusted to society and more aware of their environment, RM)

283. Targets to increase walking and cycling within the fabric of everyday life have been set by successive governments but have totally failed. Levels of each activity have dropped to an extent which we find startling. As we have noted, levels of walking and cycling have fallen dramatically in recent years.

284. Published research from Bristol University and elsewhere using accurate measures of children's movement indicates clearly that most energy expenditure takes place when children walk to school, play out at break times and again after school.

Informal play seems to be more important than formal activity at least up until the teen years. Furthermore, this work shows that children are less active at weekends and in school holidays, indicating how important the school and its schedule of activities, not just formal PE and sport are to facilitating children's activity. We believe that providing safe routes to school for walking and cycling, adequate and safe play areas in and out of school is very important in the battle against obesity.

300. A number of witnesses pointed to the contribution they believed that cycling could make in combating obesity. The English Regions Cycling Development Team argued that there was a suppressed demand for cycling as there are more than 20 million bicycles in the UK, many of which were rarely used.Sustrans suggested that countries which were broadly socio-economically similar to the UK but with much higher cycling rates had lower levels of obesity, as this graphic demonstrates:

301. They contended that obesity was a symptom of the way the physical environment was planned and argued that changes should be made to encourage and facilitate active forms of travel, such as higher parking charges and improved cycling routes. In a survey of users of their National Cycle Network, 70% stated that the existence of the route had helped to increase their level of physical activity. Many of the proposals put forward by Sustrans could also link with attempts to improve healthy routes to school.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister therefore has a role to play in encouraging or demanding that town planning guidance includes measures to encourage physical activity.

302. The Department for Transport published a National Cycling Strategy in July 1996 with the target of increasing the number of cycle journeys four-fold by 2012. As part of the strategy a leaflet was published offering guidance to employers on ways to encourage their employees to cycle to work. It also referred to the co-ordination role that local authorities could play in stimulating changes to make cycling an attractive means of travel to work for more people.

303. The leaflet suggests a number of measures that employees could take to encourage cycling to work, including the provision of safe, secure and covered cycle parking, lockers, changing/drying facilities and showers and the offer of interest-free loans to purchase bicycles. The Department for Transport also pointed out the benefits to employers of this policy. By having a fitter, healthier workforce, employees will take fewer sick days and will have improved levels of concentration.

304. The 10 Year Transport Plan was published in 2000. This included an ambitious target to treble the number of cycling trips between 2000 and 2010. It provided additional funding to make conditions easier and safer for pedestrians and cyclists. The Plan requires authorities to prove, through Local Transport Plan (LTP) Annual Progress Reports, that they are developing and implementing strategies to secure significant increases in cycling and walking. Over the five-year period of the first LTPs, local authorities estimate they will deliver over 5,500 km of new or improved cycle tracks and cycle lanes. Around 1,200 km of cycle tracks and lanes were laid by local authorities in 2001-02 an increase of 43% on the previous year. In the same five-year period LTPs estimate that they will deliver over 1,000 km of new or improved footways and pedestrianisation schemes.

305. In 2002 two initiatives were launched by the Department for Transport to help deliver increased levels of cycling. A National Cycling Strategy Board was set up to co-ordinate and monitor implementation of the National Cycling Strategy, supported by a network of regional advisers to promote good practice and provide support to local authorities. Additionally, a Cycling Projects Fund, with £2 million funding was launched in March 2002 to support projects that can achieve a significant increase in cycling locally, or raise public awareness of the increase in cycling opportunities.

306. However, in the progress report on the ten-year plan, Delivering Better Transport (December 2002), only two of the 150 pages are devoted to progress in encouraging cycling and walking. This report also admits that latest available data from the National Travel Survey suggest that, as of 2001, the long-term decline in cycling and walking had not been reversed.

307. In 2002, the then Transport, Local Government and the Regions Committee expressed "little confidence" that the target for cycling increases would be met, detecting few signs of any growth in cycling in the first two years of the period.

308. CTC, the National Cyclists Association, suggested some additional policies that would be useful to increase the number of cyclists, such as integrating cycling with public transport by creating cycle carriages on trains and buses, providing cycle hire facilities and doing more to tackle the growth of traffic and reduce the need to travel.

309. Countries such as the Netherlands and those in Scandinavia have seen a much slower increase in obesity rates in the last 20 years and this is generally attributed to those countries' inhabitants having a much more active lifestyle, and in particular greater opportunities for active transport. In countries where there have been steady increases in cycling, such as in Denmark, there has been a reduction in casualty rates per mile. This has been achieved by "adopting comprehensive measures to create better conditions for cycling and because the more cyclists that there are, the more motorists are aware of cyclists and consequently the better they are at dealing with them."

310. Again, a Health Committee report is not the appropriate forum to discuss the detailed measures required to increase cycle use on a massive scale. We can, however, record some of the key points that our witnesses made. John Grimshaw for Sustrans suggested that "Mostly any cycle lane stops exactly where you want it, at the junction." He urged that pedestrianised city centres should be permeable to cyclists. He also suggested that greater priority should be accorded to cyclists, for example by making one way streets two way for cyclists, as was common on the Continent.
Employers could play their part by ensuring that there were adequate cycle parking facilities and showers and changing rooms available.

311. Denmark is a country with some of the highest cycling rates in Europe, and cyclists are given much more priority in transport planning. We visited Odense, Denmark's third largest city, which has a population of 200,000. The Danish Department for Transport has nominated Odense as Denmark's "national cycling city." Cycle use rates are extremely high. In Odense we met local urban planners to see what made the city so appealing for cyclists.

312. It was immediately obvious that cyclists were granted a far higher status in this city than in any in England. Dedicated cycle paths, screened from cars and pedestrians, allowed cyclists access to all of the city centre. A covered cycle parking space with room for 400 cycles had replaced a car park which had accommodated eight cars. It was even possible, for a small fee, for people to lock a cycle and any valuables away in a secure automated garage facility. As in all Denmark, there is a presumption that liability for an accident involving a motorist and a cyclist lies with the motorist. This is not the case in English law.

313. The sophisticated and comprehensive cycle network we witnessed had not been designed into Odense-this is an historic city, with a cluttered centre made up of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. It has had to be integrated within an existing city, as would be the case with major towns and cities in England. We were told that the current configuration for cycling was actually the third phase of planning. For almost 20 years Odense has been working to develop cycling. We were particularly impressed to see how children were involved in the planning process. Each year, children in schools are asked to use a computer program to map their journey to school. On this, they mark any hot-spots where they feel in danger. This information is then collated and planning authorities give priority to improving conditions at these danger spots. We also commend the approach we saw in Odense, where funding support for school transport was based on the degree of danger in covering the route from home to school by other means. This provides a financial incentive on the authorities to create safer walking and cycling routes.

314. We are pleased to note that the Department of Health has recently been involved in active travel plans. According to one of our witnesses, it was essential that the Department should have an input into transport policy; for this witness at least, that had not always been the case: The Department for Transport has this target of increasing cycling four-fold to eight per cent of all journeys, which would more or less be in common with what was achieved in Sweden. I am sure that the Department of Health have not put their weight behind that; they probably do not even know it exists. Yet a four-fold increase in cycling would probably be more valuable for their aspirations than for the Department for Transport which is actually only interested in reducing congestion.

315. The Department for Transport has recently announced that it will provide funding for "sustainable travel towns". It has set aside £10 million to help develop plans for sustainable transportation in three towns in England. These towns will "incorporate all aspects of best practice to encourage walking, cycling and other public transport use and act as showcases for other towns wishing to promote greater travel choice." Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester were selected from applications by 51 local authorities who submitted expressions of interest. They were selected on the basis of fully worked-up plans to deliver a sustainable transport scheme aiming to produce innovative school, work and personal travel plans; cycle lanes and improved cycle parking; better conditions for walking; and improved bus services.

316. It would not be appropriate for us to spell out the individual measures required to achieve the Government's ambitious cycling targets, although we were particularly impressed by the segregation of cyclists from road traffic we witnessed in Odense. If the Government were to achieve its target of trebling cycling in the period 2000-2010 (and there are very few signs that it will) that might achieve more in the fight against obesity than any individual measure we recommend within this report. So we would like the Department of Health to have a strategic input into transport policy and we believe it would be an important symbolic gesture of the move from a sickness to a health service if the Department of Health offered funding to support the Department for Transport's sustainable transport town pilots.

317. As the submissions from Living Streets and SUSTRANS made clear, what is needed is a wholesale cultural change to a country where people are more active. Town planning needs to prioritise pedestrians and cyclists rather than road vehicles; a strip of white line at the side of a busy trunk road does not constitute a safe cycle route.

318. Sustrans, in partnership with the Children's Play Council and Transport 2000, has supported Home Zones schemes, where groups of streets are designed and laid out so that car users do not have priority over other users, with cars travelling at little more than walking pace. The design enables people to use the streets as a social space, meaning that children can play outside, neighbours can socialise and the local communities can take control of their own environments.

319. There are other impediments to active travel in addition to the transport network and services. Services located in out-of-town sites where access is only easy by car promote a sedentary lifestyle and "help 'lock-in' car dependence."

The Social Exclusion Unit's report into transport and social exclusion indicated that from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, total distance travelled for food shopping increased by 60%.Whilst transport policies are necessary and important, the wider planning of communities also needs to change. There seem to be no regulations in place requiring active travel and recreation opportunities for all new housing developments; these are still being built with no consideration of the need for safe walking and cycling routes to school.

320. Many commentators argue that a national transport plan would be useful to promote and facilitate active methods of transport. Sustrans contended that obesity was a symptom of the way the physical environment had been planned and that therefore they would like to see changes that encouraged active forms of travel, such as higher parking charges and improved cycling routes. Sustrans, the National Heart Forum, the International Obesity Taskforce and others argued that a health impact assessment should be made on all transport project proposals and policies before implementation.