Road Safety and Active Travel to School

Debate between Aphra Brandreth and Olly Glover

Tuesday 22nd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Olly Glover]

Yes, tackling pavement parking is essential, because three quarters of children support stopping cars parking on the pavement, as do 58% of parents and guardians.

Councils in Wales and in most of England have limited pavement parking powers, relying on cumbersome street-by-street traffic regulation orders. In contrast, London councils have had powers to enforce against pavement parking since the 1970s, and Scotland gained them last year. Councils know their areas best, and the Liberal Democrats are calling for traffic regulation orders to be made easier for local authorities to process, so that they can take action on pavement parking more swiftly and at lower cost.

The upcoming road safety strategy is an urgent opportunity to save lives by tackling issues such as pavement parking. It must include measures to initiate a comprehensive road danger review; improve awareness of and adherence to the highway code; improve the safety of home-to-school travel; and deliver the integration of national strategy and funding with local policy.

[Aphra Brandreth (Chester South and Eddisbury) (Con)]

The hon. Member is giving an interesting speech and making important points, but distances in some rural areas mean that walking, and often cycling, are not feasible. Does he agree that any review needs a particular focus on rural roads and should perhaps support reducing speeds outside schools? In constituencies such as mine, there is not yet a policy of having 20 mph. Perhaps he can give some examples of rural roads in the Netherlands.

[Olly Glover]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. This is not one size fits all, and we need to recognise the different characters and characteristics of our areas. However, in the Netherlands there would always be this thing called a cycle path next to rural roads, so there is that segregation and people have confidence. That is the key difference. Even in places in the UK with lots of land, that is not something we generally see. It is important that, as elected representatives of our communities, we lead by example where we can and walk and cycle where possible.

In conclusion, we can empower young people to walk, wheel or cycle to school by providing them with the confidence to do that through schemes such as Bikeability and by putting in place measures to keep them safe, such as those around pavement parking and around infrastructure and street design improvements. I thank the Minister for already having kindly agreed to see Bikeability training in action in my constituency, and I look forward to hearing more about the Government’s plans for this topic, including what they plan to do to make it normal, rather than an eccentric exception, to walk or cycle to school.