A project to encourage more children to cycle to school has picked up a top accolade at the London Transport Awards.
Sustrans’ ‘Bike It’ project in Tower Hamlets led by sustainable transport charity Sustrans, Tower Hamlets council and NHS Tower Hamlets, won the ‘Cycling improvements’ category at the awards ceremony in west London last night (Thursday 4 March, 2010).
The project – part of the Tower Hamlets Healthy Borough Programme – has worked directly with 21 schools in Tower Hamlets, running events, classroom sessions, and cycle training to encourage pupils onto their bikes for the school journey.
Following the project’s launch in 2008, the number of children regularly cycling to school in Tower Hamlets has increased almost five-fold, from just 3 per cent to almost 14 per cent.
Carl Pittam, director of Sustrans in London, said: ‘The award is well-deserved recognition of the great things this joint project has achieved in Tower Hamlets. We are helping to give children a greater level of independence, to start their day in an active way and hopefully set them up with a healthy habit that they will maintain for life.
‘This is also the first time our work with school children has been funded by an NHS trust and shows what can be achieved when the health and transport sectors actively work together. Currently in London, one in six adults and one in five ten to eleven year olds are obese, so projects like ours are an important part of helping to tackle the problem.”
‘Bike It’ has been supported from the start by Transport for London, whose funding allows trials of the project across a number of London boroughs. This has led to local partnerships between Sustrans, the London boroughs and NHS trusts helping to extend the benefits of the project to many more school children across London.
Alwen Williams, chief executive NHS Tower Hamlets, said: “This is a great achievement. Our research shows that children in Tower Hamlets participate in less sport or other physical activity of at least 30 minutes duration daily than the average for England. We also know that there are low levels of cycling to school in the borough.
“The Healthy weight, healthy lives in Tower Hamlets strategy identified the need to increase participation in physical activity by children and young people and ‘Bike It’ was identified and funded as one of several projects to help deliver this objective.”
Councillor Abdal Ullah, lead member for ‘cleaner, safer, greener’ at Tower Hamlets council, said: “It’s fantastic that our efforts to boost physical activity and help the environment have been recognised at a national level. This comes less than two years before we host the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and this bodes well for future.”
This award-winning work with schools is just one of Sustrans’ projects in Tower Hamlets. The charity is also working with the borough on a new network of walking and cycling routes around Regents Canal to Mile End Park, as well as leading ‘Ocean Estate Get Out, Get Active’ which will include providing households with personalised travel information about local walking and cycling routes and public transport services.
Further information
For more information please contact Tim Carter, media relations manager, on 020 7092 5250 or email tim.carter@thpct.nhs.uk.
