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Youngsters take part in the bikeability training scheme at South Lake Primary Schoo
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Plan to get Wokingham walking and cycling

May 24, 2012

A report encouraging walking and cycling has been published.

The Active Travel Plan states that encouraging more Wokingham residents to be active in their travel helps support local objectives such as creating a healthier and more active workforce, reducing absenteeism, increasing productivity, and reducing congestion.

The plan highlights current and future opportunities to promote active travel, breaking targets down into short, medium and long term actions.

If adopted, the plan would strive to have at least 60 per cent of children in the borough travelling to school on foot or by bike by 2026.

It would aim to increase child participation in healthy lifestyle activity programmes by 15 per cent and increase older people participating in physical activity by 30 per cent.

A bikeability cycle scheme would give training to 1,000 primary school children every year.

Councillor Keith Baker, the council’s executive member for transport, rubber-stamped the plan this month.

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Most recent user comments 10 of 10

I agree that Wokingham is one of the least cycle-friendly towns that I know. It's all very well having an initiative to ensourage people to walk and cycle, but the council would be better starting with educating its highway and planning staff to consider the needs of non-motorists. In the absence of this it just looks like a cheap 'tick box exercise' that will not result in any improvement on the ground to encourage walking and cycling as a vaiable alternative to the car.

N1gel, Winnersh
26/05/2012 at 08:38

Perhaps they should start to repair the roads and pavements around the whole of the borough and people would walk more. It is such a shame but the pavements are so bad you have to walk looking at the pavement else you fall over or trip up. I had a nasty fall outside the Royal Berkshire Hospital some four months ago and am still having problems with the injury!! No compensation though from RBC as I dare say the same would be said of WBC!!

It's me in Woodley
25/05/2012 at 13:13

If you want people to walk, fix the Bl**dy drainage and pot holes on the roads so people can walk on the pavement without getting soaked by ignorant car drivers driving through puddles at speed every time it rains a bit!!

Also if you are a grown up and the pavement is not marked as a cycle path ride on the Bl**dy road and leave the pavement safe for pedestrians!

Peter Turner
24/05/2012 at 21:30

I would - but all these black recycling boxes and blue bin bags keep getting in the way.

graywok, Woosehill
24/05/2012 at 12:32

What about Cyclezone in Reading Road, Winnersh? They like bikes and they're friendly.

JC, Woodley
24/05/2012 at 12:26

Wokingham has got to be about one of the most cycle unfriendly places I know.

HatsOfDoom
24/05/2012 at 12:20

I've had a quick look at the plan and although there is a headline figure of 60% of school children travelling to school by foot or bike, the target is only a 10% increase in each category on current rates. Not a very aggressive plan if all they are planning for is a 10% increase over 14 years!

Also I see they advocate the Active First scheme to encourage kids to walk to school. But why is this only available to 9 and 10 year olds? We live about half a mile from school and my son has been walking there and back each day since he was 4. Scarily some kids living closer are driven! The scheme should be for all primary school kids as by the time they get to 9 it is probably too late. I bet there would soon be a 10%+ increase in rates.

As for improving the cycling facilities, I'll believe it when I see it. The effort so far from WBC is pathetic, to say the least. On the main roads (e.g. Reading/Wokingham Road) the cycle lanes are useless and on other roads which are often used (e.g. Wilderness Road) they just do not exist and the carriageway is full of potholes that are not fixed because they do not cause a problem for car drivers.

Fed up, Lower Earley
24/05/2012 at 12:04

Hold up...

"A report... states that encouraging more Wokingham residents to be active in their travel helps... creating a healthier and more active workforce, reducing absenteeism, increasing productivity, and reducing congestion."

How much did we pay for a report that says 'walking and cycling is healthier and less polluting than driving', or is this an internal report?

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
24/05/2012 at 11:23

It's going to be tricky to get 60% of kids walking/cycling when our schools are so few and far between. Let's move the Emmbrook into the sticks shall we? Oh, they're already doing that. Nothing's 'joined-up' (to use an annoying, fashionable, management-BS phrase).

The intention is fantastic, from a fitness/NHS/pollution point of view, but unless something real is proposed, it's all just propaganda.

Damiano_Tommassi, Wokingham
24/05/2012 at 11:21

Before embarking on schemes like this we need designated and signposted cycle routes through Wokingham. This not just a matter of a planner drawing a few lines on a map and then erecting a few signs but someone actually cycling the routes and determining how practical and safe they are for children and the elderly as well as fit adults. We also need the police to take some positive action to stop peple parking on cycle paths. When was someone last fined for doing this? You only need to cycle from Wokingham town to Winnersh Trinagle to find a dozen offenders on any Saturday morning