The Ramblers’ Association (RA) has given a mixed welcome to the Government’s pledge of £7 million to promote walking, announced as part of the Olympic Legacy Action Plan today.
The proposed 2012 Legacy Action plan is part of the Government’s post Olympic strategy launched today and pledges £140 million funds to boost health and fitness, of which £7million are allocated to walking promotion.
Simon Waters, RA Head of Promoting Walking, comments: “The Ramblers’ Association strongly welcomes Government commitment to a healthy legacy for the 2012 Olympics and allocation of funds to promoting walking, but £7million is simply not enough.
“Walking may not be as glamorous as Olympic-level sport, but it is the cheapest and most realistic form of exercise known to humankind. Walking is an accessible form of exercise for people from high deprivation communities most at risk from inactivity. It should be the key part of any Government health and fitness strategy.”
Currently the Ramblers’ Association are pioneering urban walking programmes in five inner city areas around the country. The 12-week Get Walking programme works to combat obesity, social alienation and poor physical and mental health in urban communities by helping people incorporate regular walking into their everyday lives.
Simon Waters comments: “Initiatives such as the Ramblers' Association’s Get Walking Keep Walking project are demonstrating that if walking is presented in the right way it can be promoted successfully to a wide range of people, including inactive people in inner cities. If we are to substantially increase physical activity levels, then walking needs a hike in resources -- including infrastructure improvements to make our towns and cities more walker-friendly, as advocated by the NHS's own advisers, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence."
Four Footsteps to get Britain walking
The Ramblers’ Association, alongside 70 other health, recreation, transport and planning organisations (1) are calling for 10% of transport budgets to be committed to walking and cycling. Our four footsteps to get Britain walking are:
1. Provision of safe, accessible, convenient and attractive public space and infrastructure for walking in urban and rural contexts.
2. Investment in walking promotion to a wide range of audiences and communities. This includes the most vulnerable and most deprived who suffer disproportionately from ill health, using social marketing and behaviour change campaigns, innovative and effective community projects and imaginative and accessible information provision, and working through a range of agencies including community groups, the voluntary sector and the NHS.
3. Effective partnerships and joined up thinking across national, regional and local government and the voluntary sector. Particularly amongst those responsible for health, leisure and recreation, transport and planning, reflecting the many individual and social benefits of higher levels of walking.
4. To encourage the participation of all sorts of people walking in all sorts of contexts for all sorts of benefits, including: physical and mental health, and the wider well being agenda; social cohesion; sustainable transport, to name just a few.
