HedgehogCycling.co.uk

Yorkshire cycling website

NHS to help create healthy new towns

3rd March 2016

The NHS is to help create healthy new towns, the BBC reports. It will work together with designers and technology experts on ten new housing developments, to build healthy living into the plans. 

Encouraging active travel - cycling and walking - will be part of the scheme. Other ideas include creating safe green spaces to play in, and keeping the areas around schools free of fast food outlets.

The head of NHS England, Simon Stevens, said, 'As these new neighbourhoods and towns are built, we'll kick ourselves if in 10 years' time we look back having missed the opportunity to 'design out' the obesogenic environment, and 'design in' health and well-being. We want children to have places where they want to play with friends and can safely walk or cycle to school - rather than just exercising their fingers on video games.'

The NHS calls the project its Healthy New Towns programme.

Client Earth gives Environment Secretary 10 days to act on pollution

Meanwhile law firm Client Earth sent the Environment Secretary Liz Truss a final warning on 1st March 2016, with 10 days to act on air pollution, or face further action in court.

Client Earth won a Supreme Court judgment against the government in April 2015, obliging the Environment Secretary to publish a plan to improve air quality. Air pollution is currently responsible for an estimated 40,000 early deaths per year in the UK. 

Client Earth says the government has failed to produce a plan which would reduce air pollution as soon as possible. The plan it has published falls 'woefully short' of what the court ordered. According to the Guardian, the government's proposed 'clean air zones' would involve charges for the most polluting buses, taxis, coaches, and lorries to enter city centres, but ignore private cars, which are a significant source of pollution.

MPs debate investment in cycling

MPs debated funding for cycling at Westminster Hall on 3rd February 2016, on a motion by Conservative MP for Bolton West Chris Green. Read more about MPs debate investment in cycling...

More traffic than ever before in 2015

There was more traffic on Britain's roads than ever before in 2015, according to a DfT report. Traffic rose above the level before the financial crash, for the first time, and rush hour speeds decreased. Read more about more traffic than ever before in 2015...