Home ownership
03/06/2026
Business news
25/07/2023
How are homebuilders boosting walking and cycling in communities?
Following a report by the National Audit Office (NAO)1, attention is shifting from simply ‘building homes’ to building quality new housing stock that benefits residents, prioritises health initiatives and creates sustainable communities that feed into other government targets.
The report by the NAO suggested that over half of local authorities are currently aiming to boost walking and cycling in their communities. Housebuilders are supporting this by providing solutions that support councils to meet their active travel targets and build healthy communities.
John Bowden, Head of Sustainability at Keepmoat, shares his insight into how this is being done.
The four main targets outlined by the Department for Transport (DfT) include doubling the number of cycling trips, increasing the proportion of primary school children cycling, ensuring that almost half of short urban journeys are walked, cycled, or wheeled, and having an average of 365 ‘walked’ stages of travel per person a year by 2025.
Future gazing and planning
The first consideration is choosing the right location of developments wherever possible. Brownfield sites feeding into urban areas are likely to be closer to amenities, enabling residents to take short trips on a bike or on foot. In more rural settings, quiet country roads may connect into bridle paths and a wider cycle network.
Transformative training programmes for Land, Partnership and Design teams can support the sector to improve the design of places through best practice placemaking guidance, such as Building for a Healthy Life.
This guidance is focussed on encouraging active travel, creating safe and attractive places to walk, cycle, meet and play. Development road layouts can be arranged to encourage slow driving and demonstrate priority for pedestrians in key places.
Future planning for developers should include aligning business targets with those set out by the DfT. This includes setting a minimum standard for public transport access across all new land purchase approvals, and pushing forward with ambitious plans to develop a methodology for measuring placemaking quality. There can also be a role in the design of the homes – for example, ensuring there is a convenient place to store a bicycle.
Integrating sustainable transport options
Regenerating land and building new developments can support the delivery of walking and cycling targets. When placed at the heart of developments, ‘active travel opportunities’, ranging from available cycle lanes, walking footpaths and public transport links, can promote more sustainable transport options.
Centering developments around future planning can enable these sustainable transport modes to be easily accessed by residents. This shift away from petrol and diesel-powered vehicles is key to reducing carbon emissions from transport, and essential in preventing mounting congestion on our roads. It means better places to live and new homes that encourage connected and healthy communities.
For more information about how Keepmoat is creating healthy communities, please click here.
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