Introduction
Abingdon Primary chose active travel as one of their 3 priorities for CAS. As this area had never been chosen by any of the previous or current schools, my lack of knowledge within this area led me to try a new approach and bring together some experts within this area to support me and the school.
What happened?
I contacted both Sustrans and Middlesbrough Council based on the knowledge that Sustrans had recently taken over the contract for active travel across Tees Valley and that Middlesbrough Council currently offer pedestrian training for schools. I quickly established that there are various partners all working on different strands of active travel but not communicating so I proposed that we bring together the range of partners from across Middlesbrough who have a remit around active travel to share their practice.
Who was involved?
The first meeting was held in December and had Sustrans, Living Streets, Abingdon Primary, Middlesbrough Council Travel Officer and myself and Lucy Melville. We discussed current work priorities and how we could align them to support the school. As it was so close to Christmas, we decided to meet again in January as more partners were wanting to come but due to the timings, weren't able to.
The second meeting in January had Middlesbrough Council, Living Streets, Sustrans, Climate Action Middlesbrough (CAM) and Middlesbrough Envinromental City (MEC) It became clear that everyone was wanting to target the schools with various initiatives but a more streamlined approach was needed.
How?
We decided as a group to work together to support Abingdon as a pilot and see if by utilising all partners together, it has more of an impact than has previously been seen i.e. partners commented that they were having little to no impact with active travel, struggling to make relationships with schools etc.
What did we learn?
By coming together as a group, we have connected all partners who are all working towards the same goal and now all know of each other and their work priorities. Extra funding has been found from MEC and CAM who are keen to use it for Abingdon. If I had tried to support Abingdon just through my CAS role with this, I wouldn't have been able to have the knowledge and expertise that these additional partners do too. Plus by combining capacity and resource, the offer to the school is vast and hoping will have a much greater impact than if TVS had just done it alone.
From a school's perspective, they really liked the idea of a group coming together rather than being individually targeted by all the different organisations trying to offer something to promote active travel.
What were the biggest challenges?
Trying to get everyone to meet face to face is always a challenge however, we've tried to ensure we take minutes from each meeting and put actions against different organisations so momentum is ongoing.
All of the organisations want to host an active travel event to showcase who they are and promote positive active travel messages but there were some disagreements on how big the event should be, who it should target and where it should be held. This ranged from Abingdon parents, in school to all of central Middlesbrough at Albert Park. This will be something to discuss at next meeting alongside the school.
What went well?
- MEC are creating a bespoke map around the schools to give 3 active travel routes. Can upscale to all Middlesbrough schools.
- Living Streets are hosting WOW initiative in Abingdon and 15 other Tees Valley Schools that we've linked them with through SGOs (rewards for active travel to school)
- Middlesbrough Council working with Abingdon to create a junior road safety group of Y5 pupils to upskil them and use as advocates
- Middlesbrough Council working with Abingdon to look at possibility of experimental traffic regulation order and consult residents
- CAM project to fund parking buddies outside of school
- Air pollution monitor being sourced via Sustrans to use for school
- CAM want to actively get involved with CAS project and offer training and assemblies for pupils
- Sustrans to offer learn to ride training to Abingdon parents
- Pedestrian and bikeability offered to all pupils
- All agreed that parents need involving so looking at an event to introduce organisations and showcase benefits of active travel
What didn't go well?
As it's a pilot, it is a lot of time and resource going into one school. Due to the large number of partners, it will need regular meetings and follow ups via email to check everyone is actioning their part to make it work.
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