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ActivePlanning works at the ‘junction’ of town and country planning, transport planning, urban design, landscape architecture and masterplanning.
Our mission is to enable more people to travel actively every day as part of increasing the number of years people live in good health and with a good quality of life. Our approach provides strategic creativity and a narrative framework for technical inputs from partner consultants and clients.
Alongside poor diet, sedentary lifestyles and car-dependency are a cost to society which contribute to reduced productivity, long term sickness absence and social care needs which impact on the quality of life of affected individuals and their families.
Most adults and children do not take sufficient exercise to benefit their health. However, this can be resolved to a great extent by making walking, wheeling and cycling a natural part of people’s everyday routines for short journeys. People need to feel safe and invited to leave the car at home and to travel actively instead.
We can plan for a healthier, happier and more inclusive future for everyone if we make active travel a natural choice so that exercise becomes incidental to the purpose of each journey made.
The cost of changes to street design and new active travel infrastructure, which can be rolled out quickly, is minimal compared with the cost of ineffectively increasing capacity on the road network and the rising social and economic costs of inactive lifestyles. Countries that invested extensively in active travel following the 1970s oil crisis did so precisely because funds for larger projects were in short supply, and yet investment in infrastructure was still needed to rebuild the economy. We are in a similar situation today - with a cost of living crisis pointing to the need for affordable transport options supported by investment in high-return projects that provide employment during their design, construction and maintenance.