Frequently Asked Questions
About Living Streets
- What is Living Streets?
- Why is walking so important?
- How do you encourage people to walk more?
- How Living Streets gets its funding
Our national campaigns – Walk to School and Walk to Work
How Living Streets gets its funding
- What work do you do in Scotland?
- What is a healthy environment?
- Why is community engagement important?
About Living Streets
What is Living Streets?
Living Streets is the national charity that stands up for pedestrians. With our supporters we campaign to create safe, attractive and enjoyable streets, where people want to walk.
We have been the national voice for pedestrians throughout our 80 year history. In the early years, our campaigning led to the introduction of the driving test, pedestrian crossings and 30mph speed limits. Since then our ambition has grown. Today we influence decision makers nationally and locally, run successful projects to encourage people to walk, and provide specialist consultancy services to help reduce congestion and carbon emissions, improve public health, and make sure every community can enjoy vibrant streets and public spaces.
Why is walking so important?
Walking is free, green and easy and can have huge benefits for our health. It is estimated that 70% of adults don’t do enough exercise to benefit their health, but by incorporating walking into your daily routine it is easy to meet the government’s recommendation of 30 minutes of moderate exercise each day.
Walking can also have a huge impact on communities as well. With more people walking, the streets become more vibrant and safer for those who use them, local economy is boosted by increased footfall and people get to know their neighbours and feel more of a community.
How do you encourage people to walk more?
We run a number of campaigns aimed at getting people out and about on their feet a bit more. Our Walk to School Campaign is in its 15th year and encourages over 2 million primary school pupils, teachers and parents to leave the car keys at home and try walking. Walk to School Week in May and Walk to School Month in October are ever increasing in popularity and our WoW campaign (walk on Wednesday, or walk once a week) keeps the momentum going throughout the year.
Our Walking Works campaign aims to encourage commuters to think a bit more about their journey to and from work and the amount of activity they do during the working day. We offer tips and advice to commuters about how they can incorporate walking into their daily routine and encourage people to explore their local area at lunchtime or by holding ‘walking meetings’ with their colleagues.
Fitter for Walking is part of a group of projects that will be helping 2 million people nationwide become more physically active, by incorporating regular walking or cycling into their daily lives. Local residents and community groups are encouraged to get involved to audit their local area and suggest changes which could be made to increase the amount of walking. Many groups currently involved in the Fitter for Walking project are working towards a ‘Fitter for Walking Standard’ which recognises the changes that have been made locally.
How Living Streets gets its funding
Living Streets attracts funding from a wide range of sources, but we can always do with more! The more income we can make, the more work we can do to create safe, attractive, enjoyable streets across the UK. You can read our latest finanical reports here.
Our most recent project developments (eg Fitter for Walking, Step Up and Walking Works) have been made possible by our grant from the Big Lottery Fund, through the Active Travel Consortium.
Some of our other projects (eg Walk to School) and roles (eg North East Co-ordinator) are supported by restricted funding from government departments or grant-giving trusts and foundations.
In other areas, we have developed strong links with local councils who fund us on a partnership basis to support their work (eg our Service Level Agreement with Newcastle City Council).
We use our expertise to help others turn policy into practice through our portfolio of Consultancy Services (training, conferences and workshops) which brings in invaluable income to support the organisation.
Local authorities and businesses who share our vision are encouraged to pledge their support by joining us through an annual subscription and benefiting from our conferences, publications and advice.
And last, but by no means least, our core campaigning and lobbying work is supported by the generous contributions of individuals (through legacies, major donations and becoming a supporter) who also wish to show their commitment to Living Streets.
Our national campaigns – Walk to School and Walk to Work
What is Walking Works?
The Walking Works campaign is one in a series of Living Streets' campaigns that aim to get us all walking more in our daily lives. Walking Works aims to encourage more people to walk to and from work, and to walk more during their working day. We do this by running national events such as the national Walk to Work Week, Walk Champion schemes and by giving online support to people who pledge to walk more. As part of the campaign, we work directly with businesses to help them promote walking and encourage their employees to use walking as a way to travel actively. For more information, please visit the website: www.walkingworks.org.uk.
What is Walk to School?
Walk to School is a campaign run by Living Streets to encourage children and parents to leave the car at home and walk to school. This builds a habit of walking which we hope will remain with them for life.
We encourage walking to school through two annual events, Walk to School Week and Walk to School Month, and the WoW scheme (Walk on Wednesdays, Walk Once a Week...) which runs throughout the year.
Please click here (www.walktoschool.org.uk) for more information. Step Up is our secondary school campaign - please click here (www.stepup.org.uk) to be taken to our Ste Up page.
Our work in Scotland
What work do you do in Scotland?
Living Streets Scotland is focusing it’s work in three areas:
- Campaigning with local authorities, Scottish Government and other relevant organisations to deliver safe, attractive enjoyable streets across Scotland.
- Healthy environments. To help increase awareness of the importance of the built environment in increasing walking and physical activity levels, we are promoting a series of tools that can help local authorities and other relevant stakeholders to improve the quality of public spaces and streets and to tackle barriers in the built environment to active lifestyles.
- Community engagement. We are developing tools to enable local people to become actively involved in influencing what happens in their streets and public spaces. This will help individuals and communities assess their own streets and neighbourhoods, identify priorities for improvement and work productively with their local authorities to achieve these improvements.
What is a healthy environment?
A Healthy Environment is a walkable environment. The need to travel by car can be significantly reduced through the creation of mixed-use neighbourhoods with interconnected street patterns, where daily needs such as health centres, public transport, shopping facilities and schools are within walking distance of most residents. Characteristics of a Walkable Neighbourhood include:
- High population density
- Different types of land use
- High connectivity - easy walking & cycling routes between destinations
- Good pedestrian and cycling facilities - well maintained pavements, cycle routes, traffic calming measures
- Good accessibility – variety of easily reached (within 10 minutes walk or around 800m) destinations or facilities
Why is community engagement important?
Community empowerment is about local people taking control and deciding what they need for their area, rather than accepting things as the way they are. It is about the changing nature of the relationship between those who manage streets and public space and those who use it. When local people can have a say in their area this increases a sense of belonging and they are more likely to feel attached to what happens in their community, creating safer, happier communities.