Facilities

Paths for All has awarded £90,000 worth of grants to 48 groups across Scotland, from South Ayrshire to Angus, who will transform neglected parts of their local path networks in the coming months. As part of a Know Your Routes campaign, money will be used for wide-ranging work including structural improvements, installing signage, hiring tools or contractors, promoting hidden routes and improving biodiversity along path networks.

Concerns around mental health and wellbeing are increasing throughout education settings. Whilst the Government has started to address this in schools, limited support has been identified for colleges. The average college has 185 students with disclosed mental health conditions. In addition to this 81% of colleges have reported having ‘significant numbers’ of students who have undisclosed mental health difficulties (Association of Colle...

Playing and learning outdoors will be a fundamental part of growing up in Scotland, following a national commitment from 50 people and organisations across the country. Alongside the Scottish Government, Inspiring Scotland and greenspace Scotland, bodies as diverse as the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland and Glasgow Science Centre, as well as education groups, academics and NHS Health Scotland have signed up to a national Position S...

The background information on the cycling infrastructure programme in London, its impacts and potential benefits: By 2041, we need an average of 3 million fewer car journeys in London each day to achieve the MTS target for 80% of trips to be made by public transport, walking and cycling (compared to 64% now) 8.17 million daily trips made by motorised modes could be cycled (car, motorcycle, taxi or public transport) but we must inves...

Planning new developments around active,efficient and sustainable modes of transport can help create attractive, accessible areas where people are able to lead healthy lives and get around without having to depend on a car. Extending new transport connections to new parts of the city can unlock new development by improving access and transport capacity for new and existing residents.

Business owners argue that a proposed loss of parking spaces in their area would lead to financial losses, thus they push hard for studies on possible economic impacts in order to pause construction of bike lanes. However, replacing on-street parking with a bike lane has little to no impact on local business, and in some cases might even increase business. While cyclists tend to spend less per shopping trip than drivers, they also te...

The UK’s population grew by 5.8 per cent between 1998-2009, which gave a boost to annual comparison goods spending of approximately £10 billion. However, town centres have not reaped the benefits of this huge increase in retail expenditure. In the face of steep competition for diminishing public funds, the importance of better streets and public spaces needs to be better understood.

The quality of the street environment effects us all - whether we are walking to school, waiting at a bus stop, cycling to work, shopping, or even driving through a city. How streets handle the various, complex and often conflicting needs of users has a profound impact on our daily lives and wellbeing. At the same time streets are often highly constrained physically. This means that those responsible for managing streets need to make ha...

Walking in urban parks and green spaces is great for our physical and mental health and this new report from The Ramblers and the Town and Country Planning Association explores the ways it can be made easier for people of all ages and backgrounds in urban areas to take a walk in the park. People were surveyed about their attitudes to urban green spaces. Sixty-seven percent of people walk in parks at least once a week, however, certain g...

This new guidance from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) covers how to improve the physical environment to encourage and support physical activity. The aim is to increase the general population’s physical activity levels. The recommendations in this guideance should be read alongside NICE's guideline on physical activity: walking and cycling. This guidance includes recommendations on: • active travel• public ...