Jackie Hook

Liberal Democrat District Councillor Bushell Ward Learn more

Well Done St Joseph’s Primary School

by Jackie Hook on 29 May, 2018

Congratulations to St Joseph’s Catholic Primary who did fantastically well in their participation in the Sustrans Big Pedal this year.
The Sustrans Big Pedal is the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two wheels for their journey to school. Across Devon 9 schools took part in the competition logging over 7,100 journeys by scooter and bike across the two week challenge. Nationally over 1,600 school registered for this year’s competition logging a massive 989,414 journeys.
Comparing the overall scores of Devon schools which took part, St Joseph’s Primary came in fifth overall, with 34% of students travelling to school on bike or scooter over their best five days of the competition.
St Joseph Primary are an extremely engaged and supportive school who are fully behind and embrace the Active Travel Devon School Project, enthusiastically taking part in any opportunity to get their pupils and families more active, as demonstrated in the recent street design project.

The Active Travel Devon School Project is funding by Devon County Council, as part of the Access Fund (Department for Transport Funding), which aims to encourage behavioural change by promoting active travel to local schools and workplaces.

The challenge is to get more children cycling and walking to school more often. We all know the traffic congestion problems the town has. We can’t alter the town centre roads, but we can alter how people travel in the town. The car has its place for many of us, and some have no choice but to use the car. However, school age children and their parents often can make different decisions, and evidence shows often will make different decisions if they are provided with safe routes. Work continues on the East-West Cycle/Pedestrian route along Ashburton Rd in the coming year. It will result in some short term traffic disruption but hopefully the long term gain will be worth it. The town  as is regularly pointed out to me cannot cope with more traffic, so the route needs to work.

Well done to the children and parents of St Joseph’s School, now the rest of us where possible need to join them in using an alternative to the car when we can.

 

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