Let's make Scotland a walking and wheeling nation
We have joined with Walking Scotland ahead of the 2026 Holyrood election to call on all parties to take four steps forward and support Scotland to be a walking and wheeling nation.
Our Campaigns & Public Affairs Coordinator Zak Viney unveils ‘The Power of Walking’ - A Walking Manifesto for 2026.
In the lead up to the election, political parties, lobbying organisations and everyday citizens will be jostling for space so the issues important to them cut through. Living Streets Scotland and Walking Scotland know that walking is one of the best ways to address some of the greatest challenges of our time, including health inequalities, physical inactivity, and the climate-nature emergency.
The incumbent Scottish Government has addressed this to mixed success, with early signs of political will surpassing any nation of the UK, pledging to spend £320m or 10% of the transport budget on active travel across the term in 2021.
The funding reality has been different, with the September 2024 cuts of £23.7m to active & sustainable travel distancing themselves from this pledge; as well as targets to reduce road traffic by 20% and to clean up our air by 2045.
We want to see bold action to reinstate Scotland as a leading active travel nation in the next government term.
Living Streets Scotland works directly in 20 local authorities across the nation to deliver WOW – the walk to school challenge, which encourages pupils to walk to school. Pupils log their journeys on the interactive WOW Travel Tracker, with those who travel actively being awarded a WOW badge every month.
The badges are designed by schoolchildren across the UK through our annual design competition, which in 2025, attracted 180,000 entries. Among the winning designs was one created by a pupil from Mosstodloch Primary School, in Moray, one of 160 schools in Scotland participating in WOW. WOW schools in Scotland typically see a 5–10% increase in active travel rates, with participation funded by Transport Scotland and our local authority partners.
Living Streets Scotland also runs Walk to School Week every May in partnership with 28 local authorities across Scotland. Pupils are challenged to walk or wheel to school each day during the week to feel the benefits before the start of the school day. In 2025, pupils from Royal Mile Primary School joined City of Edinburgh Council representatives at the Scottish Parliament to celebrate the annual initiative, which saw over 250,000 children take part.
As Scotland looks to the future, we need the next Parliament to consider walking and wheeling not just as modes of transport – but as essential for the nation’s economy, health, environment and communities. This makes them key to building a fairer, healthier and greener Scotland – and as an issue to be prioritised.
Most people in Scotland are walking or wheeling regularly. 85% do so either every day or several times a week. But people want to walk more – 69% want to walk more for leisure and 60% for routine purposes. In turn, we know this provides a multitude of societal benefits, with investment in walkable streets returning £6 for every £1 spent; as well as the opportunity to prevent more than 3,400 cases of serious long-term health conditions across the nation.
To deliver Scotland’s healthier, greener future, Living Streets Scotland and Walking Scotland have today unveiled, ‘The Power of Walking – A Walking Manifesto for 2026’, calling on all parties to take four steps forward and support Scotland to be a walking and wheeling nation:
1. Put walking and wheeling at the heart of government
Promote walking and wheeling across all levels of government to drive progress across health, transport, climate, planning and development agendas, making walking and wheeling central to decision-making. Cross-party leadership, ambitious targets and appropriate funding are core to this.
2. Invest in walking and wheeling
Commit long-term funding and increase delivery of local walking and wheeling initiatives to support behaviour change, inclusion and participation, particularly in areas of deprivation and inequalities. We need to support enabling this behaviour through safer, more accessible routes to key destinations, including schools, workplaces, community centres and the high street, as well as more equitable access to walking and wheeling routes in nature and green spaces.
3. Prioritise walking and wheeling in communities
Maintain and improve infrastructure, making our paths and streets accessible to all with high quality and inclusive walking and wheeling routes which are better connected to public transport, local services and nature. We also want to see new developments and regeneration projects designed around walking and wheeling from the outset, and improved local capacity to fund, plan, deliver and manage infrastructure.
4. Improve safety for walking and wheeling
Deliver on Scotland’s Road Safety Framework and reduce traffic speeds with a national 20mph default speed limit making it safer for everyone to walk and wheel; as well as ensuring full implementation of the pavement parking law by all local authorities. We also want to see promotion of the 2022 changes to the Highway Code, including increasing awareness of the hierarchy of road users which puts pedestrians at the top.
Our four steps are essential to help Scotland deliver it’s goals around local economies, public health and the environment; as well as shaping this progress with equity. A cornerstone of this manifesto is the consideration of street users such as children, older adults and disabled people, whom all face unique challenges related to street accessibility.
In the same breath, our manifesto pushes the next Scottish Government to make progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 10, directing investment to underserved communities, ensuring equitable access to walking and wheeling infrastructure and creating routes to opportunity doing so.
We’ll be taking our four steps to political parties and MSP candidates in the lead up to the election, ensuring the next Scottish Parliament places walking and wheeling on their agenda from day one – shaping its blueprint as a walking and wheeling nation.
We can only continue our campaigns work in Scotland with your support. Please click the action button below and donate to Living Streets Scotland today.
