The Ramblers is calling on people in Scotland to nominate their area for Britain’s Best Walking Neighbourhood Award.
The walking charity is searching for the places that put pedestrians first and lead the way in enabling residents to walk every day for transport or leisure.
Now in its second year, Britain’s Best Walking Neighbourhood Award celebrates local authorities, developers, individuals and communities that have made positive changes to help make neighbourhoods more walkable – from making routes and public spaces greener, to building mixed-use developments that encourage active travel, to improving the way local streets connect people to the places they want to go.
Vanessa Griffiths, Ramblers chief executive, said: ‘We have a vision of a country designed for walking, in the open countryside, and close to where we all live and work. By making it easy for people to walk their everyday local journeys, we help them live more active, healthier lives.
‘Not only that, we help tackle some of society’s biggest problems including growing levels of obesity, social isolation, congestion and air pollution. Sadly, for many of us the areas we live in have been designed to favour cars rather than people, making walking unsafe, or unpleasant.
‘With this award, we want to highlight the places and people already doing a great job to make walking easier in their local neighbourhoods. We also want to encourage others to think about the small changes they could make to improve the walkability of their neighbourhoods and health and wellbeing of their residents, while creating more vibrant communities.’
The Ramblers believes that one of the most important features of a walking neighbourhood is its ‘greenness’ or how well it connects people to the natural environment. Local green spaces and routes make areas more attractive to walk and provide opportunities for physical activity as well as to relax, recharge and connect. People living near green spaces are more likely to be physically active, with research showing that those who live within 500m of accessible green space are 24% more likely to meet recommended levels of physical activity.
Vanessa added: ‘The majority of us live in built up areas, and evidence shows that communities highly value green spaces and routes in their neighbourhood and hugely benefit from having regular contact with the natural environment.
‘We are keen to hear about neighbourhoods that have improved or created new green routes, spaces or features, because we know that these make neighbourhoods more appealing for walking, whether it’s for leisure or as a means of getting from A to B.’
DG1 in Dumfries made it to the final of last year’s award. The once a run-down and neglected neighbourhood was transformed by an injection of funding.
The community developed their own innovative solutions to problems they had identified in the area. This included the creation of five civic spaces with street furniture, cycle parking, noticeboards and planters; street lighting upgrades; new street signs and the addition of places for people to stop and rest.
A neighbourhood is any district, community or area where people live and work – it could be the heart of a big city, or a small village with just a few streets and houses.
The finalists will be chosen by an expert panel and the winner will be decided by public vote in summer 2019.
To nominate your neighbourhood, visit www.ramblers.org.uk/nominate and tell them about the changes that have made it into a great place for walking. The deadline for nominations is 3 March.
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