'Every parent should feel confident their child can get to school safely,' South Yorkshire mayor Oliver Coppard said as ministers set out a £4.5 billion plan to get more people walking, wheeling and cycling. That line, more than the usual fanfare from Whitehall, gets to the point of the government’s new strategy for England. On 12 June 2026, the Department for Transport published its third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, setting a target for 55% of short trips in towns and cities to be made by walking, wheeling or cycling by 2035. Ministers also want 60% of children aged 5 to 16 to travel actively to school by the same date. For northern towns where busy roads, patchy pavements and awkward crossings still put people off, the promise sounds simple enough: make short everyday travel feel safe.

According to the Department for Transport, the projected £4.5 billion over the next five years will back 5,000 new walking, wheeling and cycling routes and 10,000 safer crossings by 2030. The idea is to link homes with schools, high streets, local services and rail stations, making it easier to combine a walk or cycle with a bus or train rather than treat active travel as a separate issue. Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander said too many people still lack 'safe and convenient options'. That will ring true in plenty of northern neighbourhoods, where the gap is not enthusiasm but basic street design: a crossing near the school gate, a route to the bus stop that does not feel risky, and pavements that work for parents, older people and wheelchair users alike.

Ministers are selling the policy on cost, health and congestion as much as carbon. The Department for Transport says a household that can give up a second car because short local trips are done on foot or by cycle could save about £1,700 a year, or more than £17,000 over a decade. Published alongside Active Travel England’s Worth Every Step plan, the strategy also says more daily activity could free up around 1.7 million GP appointments each year and cut sick days by 4.4 million. James Murray and Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty both used the launch to make the public health case, arguing that even modest rises in activity can ease pressure on the NHS and narrow health inequalities. In the North, where poor health often sits alongside weak local transport links, that is not an afterthought. It is part of why this matters.

Greater Manchester already gives ministers a live example of how this can work when walking, wheeling, cycling, buses and trams are planned together. Dame Sarah Storey, the city-region’s Active Travel Commissioner, said the focus is on giving people more choice through the Bee Network, with around a third of trips already made actively and 90% of public transport users walking as part of their wider travel. That matters because it shifts the argument away from lifestyle branding and back to how people actually get about. Storey said the region’s ten councils and Transport for Greater Manchester are using School Streets and road danger reduction to make daily travel easier for families. National Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman struck a similar note, arguing that the quickest gains will come from the school run and simple zebra crossings, not glossy slogans.

South Yorkshire is making a similar case, with Coppard tying active travel to neighbourhood health and children’s independence. He said more than 170 primary schools are involved this year in his Mayor’s Walk and Wheel Challenge, with tens of millions of pounds going into safer crossings, routes to school, School Streets and trials of simple zebra crossings. For a Northern Ledger audience, this is where the announcement starts to feel real. If devolution is to mean anything, it should mean local leaders can spend on the street changes their communities have asked for, instead of waiting for a one-size-fits-all answer from Westminster.

The West of England was also held up by ministers as a regional example, with mayor Helen Godwin backing a national push to double School Streets and pointing to almost 100 miles of new and improved routes from tens of millions in local investment. The government says the strategy brings transport, health and local investment into the same conversation, while giving councils and mayors a bigger say over delivery. It also sits within the Pride in Place programme, which ministers say is about giving communities more control over the renewal of their neighbourhoods. For towns and city regions outside London, that only lands if the funding reaches the places where people actually make short everyday trips: the estate road, the high street crossing, the path to the tram stop and the road outside the school gate.

There is, though, a reason many readers will reserve judgement. England has had targets before, and residents know the difference between a strategy on paper and a crossing that actually appears outside a school. Living Streets welcomed the planned 10,000 crossings and said side-road zebras and safer routes to school could make healthier choices much easier. That is the test ministers now face. By 2035, Whitehall wants 55% of short trips in towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled. In Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and other combined authority areas, that ambition will not be measured by launch-day rhetoric. It will be measured on wet weekday mornings, when parents decide whether the road feels safe enough to leave the car at home.