Travel Plan
West Byfleet Infant School has gained the Bronze Award for our Travel Plan, which is designed to encourage and promote sustainable travel and improve air quality. This is managed in conjunction with Surrey County Council and helps us highlight any travel or infrastructure issues that need addressing. We have a number of initiatives that help with our Travel Plan:
- Teaching the children to walk safely along the pavement and learn how to cross roads
- Communicating and promoting with parents regarding sustainable travel and safety through newsletters and initiatives
- Scooter and Bike storage
- Road markings in the playground that the children can use to learn about road safety
- Hands up surveys to understand how children and staff travel to school
- Reporting issues such as pot holes, broken paving, speeding traffic, dangerous driving/parking etc
- Link to the Interactive Parking Restrictions Map here to see where you can safely park and then walk to school
- Encouraging parents and children to park and stride if possible
- Involving the Eco team and Governors in the travel plan
- Encouraging the children to think about the world around us and promote sustainable travel and road safety - eg design road safety banners
What is a Travel Plan?
Surrey County Council require us as a school to have travel plan. It is a long-term strategy which aims to encourage people to use alternatives to cars. It includes a range of measures which encourage people to walk, cycle, use public transport and share car journeys. Our plan includes any travel issues, road safety awareness and issues, parking issues etc which need to be addressed, details of how people travel to the site, an action plan, a specific car reduction target and details of how the travel plan will be monitored and reported on. This goes to Surrey each February/March for accreditation. We have always achieved a Bronze "Good" Travel plan.
Travel plan content is required to contribute towards the objectives of Surrey County Council's Local Transport Plan. The four objectives are:
- Effective transport: To facilitate end-to-end journeys for residents, business and visitors by maintaining the road network, delivering public transport services and, where appropriate, providing enhancements.
- Reliable transport: To improve the journey time reliability of travel in Surrey.
- Safe transport: To improve road safety and the security of the travelling public in Surrey.
- Sustainable transport: To provide an integrated transport system that protects the environment, keeps people healthy and provides for lower carbon transport choices.
Organisations are increasingly developing travel plans voluntarily. Travel plans can help to tackle specific problems such as car parking pressures or road safety issues. Some organisations develop travel plans to address environmental concerns or to improve conditions for their workforce, visitors, customers, patients and/or students.
Schools with travel plans report improved attentiveness from pupils on arrival at school. Pupils are also able to put their road safety skills into practice and improve their knowledge of the local area, when they walk, scooter or cycle on the school journey. Schools find that having a travel plan helps achieve Eco-Schools accreditation and can improve relations with local residents.