We are delighted to announce another new addition to the Ramblers' family of Get Walking Keep Walking projects, extending our work to promote everyday local walking to inactive people in particular.
In October 2011 we will be launching Get Walking Keep Walking Leicester in partnership with Leicester City Council, funded by the Department for Transport's (DfT) Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF). The funding will support a Ramblers local coordinator based with the council for three years from January 2012.
The new project, part of a package of measures to improve sustainable travel in the city, is particularly focused on helping people walk to work and on other everyday journeys, demonstrating walking's benefits as a safe and enjoyable way of getting around as well as a healthy physical activity.
People taking part will be encouraged to take up other walking opportunities – including local Ramblers walks. Ramblers staff worked with Ramblers volunteers in Leicestershire and Rutland Area and Leicester Group when developing the proposal with the council.
DfT is currently agreeing a second tranche of LSTF funding for transport agencies in England, and we are working with transport executives in Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield -- cities where we already run Get Walking projects -- to try to secure further funding when existing Big Lottery Fund and Ramblers Holiday Charitable Trust (RHCT) funding ends in December 2011. Get Walking is also funded by BIG and RHCT in five London boroughs until December 2011.
Get Walking is now funded in County Durham by NHS County Durham, where project staff work closely with Ramblers Northumbria Area. We are seeking further funds from the NHS to extend the project until March 2013.
Elements of Get Walking are now also being delivered in Swindon and in several prisons in southwest England, supported respectively by Swindon Borough Council and Awards for All (Big Lottery Fund).
Read a press release about the Leicester project here.
See the Get Walking pages in our promoting walking section for more information about the project, or for the public face of Get Walking visit www.getwalking.org.
