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New website to improve road safety, health, environment. Children, parents and teachers across Wigan borough are being urged to log on to a healthier way to get to school. A new Greater Manchester-wide website shows how school travel plans can improve health and learning for children - and demonstrates how to go about introducing them to local schools. Traveltoschool.com features plenty of information for Wigan borough and has been warmly welcomed by local road safety experts. Wigan Council's Environment Champion, Cllr David Molyneux, says: "It's in everyone's interest to encourage pupils, parents and school staff to find alternatives to the car and cut congestion at the school gates. "This website is an excellent tool to communicate the benefits of school travel plans, showing everyone how they can get involved." Traveltoschool.com features games for pupils and classroom resources for teachers. The site has been produced by all ten Greater Manchester councils in conjunction with consultants Jackson Collins, and was funded by the Association of Primary Care Trusts. Jackson Collins' director, Ade Collins adds. "With the recent focus by government on school travel, we wanted to provide a website for everybody that might want to know more. It was important that we make this website as comprehensive as possible, so it was a massive undertaking and has been several years in the making." Over half of Greater Manchester's schools have already adopted school travel plans ahead of the government's target. The benefits of all of this hard work include increased health and fitness, cutting obesity and increasing independence and road safety skills. Karen Preston from Wigan Council's road safety team explains some of the extra advantages of walking to school: "Without controlled exposure to road conditions at an early age, children are less able to deal with traffic when they are travelling independently as teenagers. This has contributed to road accidents becoming the leading cause of death for under 16s. Walking to school makes children more alert and ready to learn and starts them thinking early about travel choices as they grow up." Anyone wanting to know more or get involved should visit http://www.traveltoschool.com  or contact their local School Travel Adviser. |
