News - More communities set to benefit from Travel Plan Forum

30th April 2010

A new forum has been established to ensure that communities throughout Bridgend County Borough Council can benefit from safer routes to schools, shops and other local amenities.

Bridgend County Borough Council has established the Travel Plan Forum in order to provide a network of useful contacts and to allow different communities to learn from the experience of other areas where safer routes have already been established.

The forum will act as an ideas bank for aspiring schools and communities, and provide support and advice for people acting as travel plan champions for their areas.

Council officers from education, regeneration and transportation joined representatives of Communities First, Valleys to Coast Housing and the South East Wales Transport Alliance at the very first Travel Plan Forum meeting at the Civic Offices in Angel Street, Bridgend.

Councillor John Spanswick, Cabinet Member for Communities, said: The Travel Plan Forum will seek to establish a good practice guide and build up a body of knowledge that can be used when establishing new safe routes in local communities.

Whether it is by car, public transport, bicycle or on foot, journeys to school or local amenities such as shops, GP surgeries, community centres, parks or leisure centres all have different patterns and characteristics - what time the journey is made, how many stops there are along the way, what route is taken and so on.

Since 1999, the council has been promoting Safe Routes in Communities under the Welsh Assembly Government’s Transport Grant programme.

With nine School Travel Plans and three Community Access Plans already established in the area, the new Travel Plan Forum will allow lessons that have been learned and experience gained to be applied for the benefit of other local communities.