5. Statement by the Deputy Minister for Economy and Transport: Active Travel

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:51 pm on 14 May 2019.

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Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 4:51, 14 May 2019

Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister. What's clear to me is that in the context of the climate emergency we have now declared, this has to be everybody's business. You can't do it on your own, and I welcome the fact that you're going to offer training to officers in local authorities who are going to be taking on this new role, because it seems to me that one of the first stops should be in the planning department to ensure that we don't allow any new home developments or, indeed, business developments, unless we secure the active travel schemes to go with. But, obviously, most of the challenges come from retrofitting active travel into the streetscape that we've already got.

So, obviously, the most important statement last week was the First Minister's statement about 20 mph being the default for all areas, and it can't come soon enough in my constituency where, unfortunately, far too many motorists think that roads are for speeding on. In an urban area, that's completely unacceptable.

I also welcome the fact that you're focusing on people who don't walk or cycle because, obviously, we've got to have that cultural change, and focusing on these journeys to work, school and the shops that people do every day. So, in terms of engaging with all the other stakeholders, I just wondered how we're going to engage with schools and ensure that every single school has an active travel plan. Clearly, it will be very different in a rural area to an urban area, but if we don't support families to understand that there are active travel routes that they can more safely bring their children to school on than by condemning them, submitting them to going in a car, which is obviously much more dangerous, you know, it can be difficult for people who aren't themselves cyclists to know where the routes are. So, I'd like to know—I'm sure you don't necessarily know yourself—how many schools in Wales actually have an active travel plan, and what is the target we're going to set for achieving the vast majority of schools having an active travel plan.

Equally, we need to ensure that businesses are engaged in ensuring that their staff can arrive by bike or by—. They're not going to bring their bikes unless there's somewhere secure for them to park them, because otherwise they might not be there when they need to go home. Equally, obviously, children living three miles away from their school are entitled to free bus travel. What thought has been given in areas where there is public transport, like Cardiff, to ensuring that children are given free bus passes to travel on public transport, rather than these specialist buses that nobody else can use? It seems to me that there might be a way of incrementally increasing the number of buses available to everybody.

I suppose, lastly, one of my bugbears is to change the culture that encourages secondary school parents to pick up children from school. I can see long lines of them at the school where I'm a governor, and I simply cannot understand why any parent would not want to give their child the opportunity and the freedom to make their own way home, unless they're going on some special journey that requires them to be picked up.