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Transport Minister to endorse childrens' safer, sustainable route to school

Scotland's Transport Minister will help launch a safer, healthier and more sustainable route for pupils travelling to a Buchan school tomorrow. (Friday, May 1)

Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Stewart Stevenson will formally open Maggie Black's Trail at Buchanhaven Primary School in Peterhead.

The £140,000 shared-use path, which links the school to the Waterside area of the town, provides a safer walking and cycling route to school for pupils.

It has been funded by a Scottish Government and Sustrans "Tackling the School Run" grant and by Aberdeenshire Council.

The path's new name was coined by primary seven pupil Curtis Stephen in a very popular competition run by the school's pupil council in December.

Maggie Black was a well known and popular local character who lived on a farm near the path and sold milk to people in the area.

Her story is also a link to an age of more sustainable travel behaviour, when people often travelled miles on foot and the vast majority of pupils walked to school.

In a project linking physical activity with environmental, citizenship and road safety education within the curriculum, the name was selected in the competition and approved unanimously by the local community council and councillors.

Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, Stewart Stevenson, added: "This new route is a great example of pupils being able to make a safe and healthy journey to school and I'm sure it will highlight to parents the alternatives to driving their children to the school gate.

"Using the new route will not only enable the pupils to undertake regular physical activity and achieve the benefits associated with that, it will also help them to learn about sustainable travel methods at an early age, both priority areas for this government."

Chairman of Aberdeenshire Council's Infrastructure Services Committee, Peter Argyle, praised the pupils' part in establishing the new route.

"It's great that they've been so involved in this project and have taken up its themes with such enthusiasm - it's heartening to see Aberdeenshire's citizens of the future embracing sustainable travel options," he said.

"The path is not only a safer walking and cycling route for pupils, it encourages the idea that there are viable, healthy alternatives to the lift to school and we as a council were pleased to be able to contribute to the project."

Figures released by Sustrans this week show that nearly 22% of Scottish pupils are now driven all the way to school, with only 52% travelling to school by active modes of transport, such as walking or cycling. A further 6% "Park and Stride" to get to school, driving part of the way, then parking away from the school and walking the last section of the trip.

The "Hands-Up Scotland" survey results provide the first ever snapshot of pupil travel to school across Scotland.

In Aberdeenshire, the travel trend is heading the right way in 2009: in the third successive year of our own Hands-Up Travel survey, car-only trips to school decreased again to 19% (from a starting figure of 24% in 2006) and are now far ahead of the 21.5% target for 2010 set out in our Local Transport Strategy.

The development of Maggie Black's Trail supports Peterhead's Cycling Demonstration Town Masterplan, which considers both physical infrastructure improvements and other measures to promote cycling within schools, businesses and the wider general public.

The launch procession will leave Buchanhaven School shortly after 11am and walk up to the path, where the name sign will be revealed and the path officially opened by the Minister.