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National Walking Summit 2022
bookings now open

Walking for everyone - Tuesday 22 March 2022

In person in London, Online and Local Networking & Viewing Hubs

Park walk

Improving air quality, tackling inactivity, and reviving local high streets requires neighbourhood by neighbourhood action and agreement. But we need streets that work for everyone.

Our Summit will look at how we can create truly inclusive streets for all and how we ensure marginalised voices are brought into transport planning and design.

The 2022 event will bring together people from across the UK and internationally to explore how to break down barriers to walking and cycling in order to create places where people want to rest, play and spend time.

Held in a hybrid format with a main conference in London and an online platform. This year’s programme allows professionals, campaigners, Living Streets members, councillors, engineers and planners to take part nationally at our London studio, internationally, locally (online or at one of our networking hubs) or on demand.

All Living Streets members who donate are entitled to a free online place. Our AGM will take place on the same day. Become a member today.

The event will be hosted by our partners City View. Find out more and book your place. 

Book your place

Free online place for donating members

All Living Streets members who donate are entitled to a free online place at the 2022 Summit. Never has there been a better time to join our movement for change. Sign up to become a member today – we will send all eligible members a sign up form for free tickets in due course.

Become a member

Call for papers

To complement the key themes of the Summit, we are seeking case studies or research presentations particularly, but not exclusively, on the following topics:

  • How to break down barriers and create better places to walk, play and rest in areas of deprivation (eg investment in low traffic neighbourhoods, behaviour change programmes and walking infrastructure).
  • Listening to marginalised voices (eg people for whom the street environment may be inaccessible or unsafe) in street design or community development projects.
  • Projects or research that have a particular focus on protected characteristics (eg gender, race or disability) and place-making.
  • Cross-sectoral approaches (eg transport and public health) to creating healthier, inclusive and safer streets for walking.
  • Projects that challenge what ‘good design’ looks like – stepping behind the headlines (eg of bus stop bypasses and continuous footway) to address the limitations and opportunities to providing fully inclusive pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

Complete this short form (Deadline: 1 October)

Children walking

Highlights from the 2021 summit

the Walking Summit 2021 WAS A HUGE SUCCESS. 

cATCH a few highlights from three OF OUR key sessions. 

Building alliances for walking and low  traffic neighbourhoods

  • We need to speak up for efforts to reduce motor traffic and in support of low traffic neighbourhoods
  • Objections are over-reported where in fact there is support for measures to reduce traffic and make roads safer
  • We need to work hard now to bring people with us for a sustainable future
  • Could we reframe our vision? Change our language so it is less about fear-mongering, more inclusive, inviting
  • We know walking works for everyone.

ENSURING CLEAN AIR AND IMPROVING PUBLIC HEALTH – HOW CAN WALKING HELP TACKLE OUR CLIMATE EMERGENCY?

  • Transport makes up most significant portion of our emissions – “a rogue sector”
  • Needs transformational not incremental changes, more about long term planning aimed at changing the way our towns and cities work.
  • Electric vehicles are not the solution – but neither is replacing short journeys alone.
  • Air pollution is contributing to development of long-term later-life illness – “air we breathe now will deliver adverse health affects 30-40 years later.”

BUILDING BACK BETTER. HOW ARE CITY LEADERS RESPONDING TO THE CHALLENGES OF AIR QUALITY, PUBLIC HEALTH AND THE PANDEMIC?

  • Introduction of cars did not stop Oslo being a city that walks a lot (39% journeys in city centre are by foot).
  • Schemes adopted by successive local governments of different parties in Oslo. Consensus.
  • Rotterdam is planning longer term, too, to transform busy roads into public space which inverts the old transport priorities, and puts people on foot and cycle first.
  • In Pontevedra they started from a position that “you cannot fix traffic”, you can only reduce (or remove!) it.
  • Make sure space taken away from cars is used well so it is never taken back.
  • In Sheffield, where pedestrians face the most inconvenience, the challenge is to spread the inconvenience more fairly and give all journeys the same priority.

Charles Maher Award

Charles Maher Award

Congratulations to the winner of our Charles Maher Award - Walking Champion 2021, Cllr Mustafa Desai from Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council.

Councillor named Living Streets’ national walking hero

Speakers in 2021 included:

  • Chris Heaton-Harris, Minister of State for Transport
  • Miguel Anxo Fernández Lores, Mayor of Pontevedra, Spain
  • Judith Bokhove, Vice Mayor, Rotterdam
  • Heidi Alexander, Deputy Mayor of London, Transport
  • Rune Gjøs, Head of the Mobility Department, Agency for Urban Environment, City of Oslo
  • Dafydd Trystan Davies, Chair, Active Travel Board in Wales
  • Julian Sanchez, Active Travel Manager, Essex County Council
  • Dame Sarah Storey, Active Travel Commissioner, Sheffield City Region
  • Lee Craigie, Active Nation Commissioner, Transport Scotland
  • Susan Claris, Associate Director, Transport Consulting Group in London, Arup
  • Michael Matheson MSP, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Connectivity, Scottish Government
  • Eoin Devane, Senior Analyst at the UK Government’s Climate Change Committee
  • Lisa Hopkinson, Associate, Transport for Quality of Life