Biggleswade Living Streets

High quality places that promote active travel can increase our emotional wellbeing and satisfaction, increase our energy levels and make people happier, reducing anger, anxiety, stress, and fear. Daily activity through walking and cycling have also been shown to reduce the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 35-50%, heart disease by 20-35% and death by 20-35% (source: Department of Health, 2011).

By making it easier to move around, improving the options available and catering for a wider range of needs, purpose built infrastructure for walking and cycling will provide more opportunities for people to socialise, making our neighbourhoods more attractive to be in, and our shopping areas busier with local people. Improving high streets for walking and cycling led to a 216% increase in people stopping, sitting or socialising in London (source: Carmona et al. 2018).

At a national level, the transport sector is the highest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions – changing journeys under 3 miles to active travel can make a big difference. Improving choices for people to travel by walking, cycling and public transport reduces CO2 emissions, improves air quality, and reduces noise pollution, creating a more enjoyable environment to be in. For example, people who cycle have 84% lower CO2 emissions from all daily travel than non-cyclists (source: University of Oxford’s Transport Studies Unit, 2021)

As Biggleswade grows, improvements to our highway network will provide opportunities for improving movement between new developments to the east and north of Biggleswade and the town centre, railways station and local amenities, which will reduce vehicle traffic; give better and more attractive opportunities for walking and cycling,  as well as better access to green space and nature, that becomes increasingly more distant from the older parts of town.