Road Safety and Active Travel to School

Afzal Khan Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Olly Glover]

The example my hon. Friend gives from her constituency shows what dedicated infrastructure can achieve in getting more people walking and cycling.

What needs to change, and how? First, as my hon. Friend just said, infrastructure and street design are incredibly important. We know from countries with high rates of walking and cycling that safe and pleasant streets are essential. The majority of accidents in the UK involving those who are cycling occur at junctions, making those areas critical points for targeted interventions. Research consistently identifies the failure to look properly as the leading cause of road injuries among those who are cycling and other road users.

I would love to see infrastructure of the quality in Assen, Groningen, Utrecht or Rotterdam—or any other Dutch town or city, for that matter—everywhere in the UK, but there are things we can do in the meantime. In London, there is an example just down the road from this place, where Westminster’s pioneering of side street zebra crossings—zebra crossing markings without the cost of having flashing lights—is a great example of a simple, low-cost intervention. The evidence shows that those crossings are already saving lives and increasing people’s confidence in walking and cycling.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester Rusholme) (Lab)]

Greater Manchester is prioritising road safety by implementing 100 school streets by 2028. Those are areas around schools that limit traffic during drop-off and pick-up times, which will make walking, wheeling and cycling to school safer for young people. Does the hon. Member agree that funding school streets will create safer, more reliable and more child-friendly environments around schools?

[Olly Glover]

That is a very good example of how spending money well can lead to a big difference.

I have already mentioned the Netherlands, but my hon. Friends on the Lib Dem Benches would be disappointed were I not to bore them to tears by wanging on about the Netherlands at greater length. If I might plug an opportunity for hon. Members to see for themselves the marvels that have been achieved there on active travel, the APPG for cycling and walking plans a trip to the Netherlands in September.

In my constituency, there are many schools where lots of pupils and parents would like to walk and cycle but cannot because of infrastructure or other barriers. The Europa school in Culham is located on a major A road, and for years the parents and the school have campaigned for a crossing to connect the school with the nearby village of Culham across that A road. They have finally got a commitment that that will happen in the next year, but still the so-called cycle path that runs near the school is nothing of the sort: it is a pavement that someone has decided people can cycle on. It is not wide enough, and there have been collisions because of that. Far more needs to be done.