Rights of way improvement plan 2020 to 2030

Having access to the natural environment helps people increase their physical activity. How active a person is can vary due to their distance from a green space, whether there are good connecting routes and the attractiveness of the environment. However, the availability and quality green space is not evenly distributed.

People in deprived urban areas often have less access to green spaces. Health and wellbeing has, in the past, not been considered properly in designing towns. This has led to places being created which do not support people in exercising or which contribute to poor health, for example through road traffic pollution.

Health and exercise is one of the main motivators for spending time in the natural environment. On the other hand, poor health is becoming a more common reason for not visiting the outdoors.

Rights of way can improve health and wellbeing in many ways, for example by:

• Providing access in areas of poor health and areas where other green space is lacking
• Increasing ‘active travel’ through safe walking and cycling routes for short journeys;
• Enabling access beyond urban areas;
• Providing routes for activities which improve health, such as walking for health, cycling and equestrian activities
• Providing free-at-the-point-of-use opportunities for exercise

To support improved health and wellbeing, we will:

• Work with the council’s Public Health Team to support Simply Walk, providing easily accessible routes and prioritising maintenance requests relating to health walk routes (AE2.1).
• Remove barriers and restrictive infrastructure, including retro-fitting existing structures to ensure maximum accessibility, for example widening bridges to 1.2m and ramping steps. Prioritise these improvements along busy routes and those close to urban areas (AE2.2).

The Simply Walk programme is Buckinghamshire’s health walk scheme. It started in 2007 and has been hugely successful.

Simply Walk offers group walks to help people become more active, in a supportive and sociable environment. It offers graded walks that anyone can attend, no matter their level of fitness. Regular organised walks use many miles of the public rights of way network.

In 2018 there were 83 different walk locations, which equates to around 3,520 walks taking place every year. The scheme employs a co-ordinator, but walks are volunteer-led providing a service worth around £320,087 per year.

For more information, visit our Simply Walk webpage.