From the chamber

OVER the next three years, Wokingham Borough Council is planning to spend £17 million on improvements to traffic flow and easing congestion through measures including the use of CCTV and intelligent traffic signals.

Back in the 1970s to the 1990s building a by-pass to relieve traffic seemed to be the solution to ease congestion. This turned out to be a short-term fix as the capacity enhancement just attracted more traffic and congestion returned with the added pollution and noise.

However, analysis indicates that around 60% of car journeys are only up to 5km. Looking at a map of the borough, the vast majority of residents live within a 5km radius of the geographic centre.

Evidence shows that with the good and safe infrastructure, walking (up to 1km) and cycling (up to 5km) can be used to take up a large proportion of these shorter journeys, including connectivity with bus and rail.

By contrast the Borough Council are planning to spend £5.8 million on the Local Walking and Cycling Infrastructure Plan and Borough Cycling Network over the same three-year period, despite most journeys being short and could easily be catered for by walking and cycling.

Sadly, history shows that the Borough Council has continued with a policy of building poor quality infrastructure that does not attract new users. There is a significant suppressed demand for cycling with more bikes bought than cars each year. However, cycle use is low at around 2-3% of journeys.

The Cycling Infrastructure Design Guide sets out these benefits based on research for the Department for Transport (DfT). And with the right cycling infrastructure the walking improvements can be carried out at the same time.

Enabling more people to cycle will help local authorities to achieve a broad range of positive transport outcomes and wider environment and public health goals. Local land use and transport strategies provide the opportunity for local authorities to plan how to increase cycling to help deliver these goals.

Cycling brings many economic benefits, reducing some of the external costs of congestion and pollution associated with motor traffic, and reducing the healthcare costs associated with physical inactivity and poor air quality.

Cycling improves physical and mental health, reducing healthcare costs and costs of absenteeism. Many people simply find it a pleasurable

activity that can be easily combined with the daily journeys that they need to make for other purposes.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that cycle and pedestrianfriendly streets can boost footfall and retail sales, helping to revive traditional high streets and town centres by creating more pleasant conditions.

It should be noted that research has found that regular exercise can reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity by 50% and the risk of high blood pressure by 30%.

Around 50,000 die annually in the UK from heart disease. Research has also found increases in productivity and general well-being among people who exercise regularly.

Active travel is not just for the young and fit. Research shows that no matter your age or fitness, increasing activity levels has benefits to health and longevity. Also, with e-bikes, the boundaries on where you can, and distance travelled are expanding.

Just imagine what the school run would look like if most students walked and cycled to school using a safe good quality network.

The DfT state in their Cycling Infrastructure Design Guide under Air Quality, meeting the targets to double cycling and increase walking would lead to saving £567 million annually from air quality alone and prevent 8,300 premature deaths each year.

The spending of £17 million on improving traffic flow will be a shortterm fix. We are in a Climate Emergency and the focus must be on improving walking and cycling not encouraging more car use, it has failed before and will fail again.

Councillor Paul Fishwick is the Liberal Democrat Lead for Highways and Transport