Active Travel Annual Progress Report 2024/25

The actions taken to promote active travel journeys

• A wide-ranging communication programme is undertaken every year to promote awareness of active travel in Torfaen. In 2024-2025 this programme was substantially enhanced through a series of new active travel awareness and behaviour change initiatives that were funded through the Shared Prosperity Fund (UK SPF) grant. The SPF, Active Travel and Road Safety Revenue programmes were all managed by one team within the Council’s Highways department to enable all projects to be effectively coordinated in the many areas where they overlap and complement each other.
• The SPF funding assigned to active travel was predominantly revenue funding. This compliments the Welsh Government active travel funding which is primarily for capital project spend. The SPF scheme made funding available primarily for initiatives focussed on increasing the awareness of the substantial improvements made to the Torfaen active travel network in recent years and the opportunities to walk and cycle for short journeys. The SPF funding was directed to projects that would engage with people of all ages but especially children of school age and teenagers. The whole emphasis was behaviour change through good experiences. The approach employed is that an enjoyable encounter with active travel is likely to encourage more people to travel actively more often.
• Active travel, SPF and road safety education & training are promoted by a combination of face-to-face meetings by council officers visiting events, schools, playschemes, home school groups and other groups, plus online through Teams/Zoom meetings, presentations, social media, website and direct email. Torfaen Council social media feeds have been used multiple times targeting all audiences.
• This year the Team have covered:-
  • Walk to school week
  • Cycle to school week
  • Scooting to school initiatives (see specific schemes below)
  • We undertook Public Health Wales active travel hands-ups surveys at schools.
  • News updates on walking and cycling schemes planned and completed.
  • We developed 6 additional Active Travel School Plans with parents surveys.
  • Funded 3 additional schools to take up the WOW Tracker scheme and provided 40 complimentary ‘Little Feet’ packs for younger active travellers to encourage active travel journey's to nursery sites.
  • Completed National Standard level 2 cycling training at 2 schools.
  • Cycle proficiency training targeted at year 6, was offered to every primary school.
  • Balance bike and scooter training at 25 primary schools
  • 751 primary school children completed Kerbcraft training this financial year.
• We worked with a number of other providers such as the Torfaen Play Services supporting their young volunteer staff in delivering services to younger children providing training information for road safety and active travel. As a result of the additional SPF funding this year, the active travel team working with Torfaen Play Scheme developed a programme to reach over 2000 children during the school holiday period promoting active travel through trip-ometers and family breakfast club drop-ins and awarding certificates for active travel journeys.
• Following an initial introduction last year, we rolled out an extensive Scootfit scooter training programme to schools with Torfaen Play Service to introduce safe scooter sessions to children and young people to improve balance and coordination skills and encourage active travel safely. This initiative proved to be extremely popular and 2375 children were trained through the programme.
• We also implemented a programme where our cycling instructors carried out balance bike training sessions with younger children at a number of primary schools. This scheme so impressed some schools that they followed up the completion of our programme by buying their own balance bikes to continue to offer the training to their pupils.
• Changing Gearz provided “bike fix” clubs at Playscheme summer holiday camps and the 3 main county-wide public events, The Big Event, Party in the Park and Blaenavon Heritage Day. In addition to hundreds of people engaged at the events themselves, over 12,000 people were also reached via Facebook posts on these events.
• We commissioned a bespoke active travel and road safety education Theatre in Education (TIE) drama production called ‘Jack & the Beanwalk’. This was pitched to suit age specific audiences with different deliveries for primary and secondary schools and offered to every school in Torfaen. English and Welsh language versions were provided. This production was by actors in front of a live audience of pupils and teachers and was seen by 7527 pupils. Very positive feedback from both pupils and school staff with a before and after questionnaire indicating significant increase in positive attitude towards active travel after seeing the production.
• A Torfaen active travel identity was created and used to promote walking, scooting and cycling. A short AT promotional film was also created and shared with specific groups and online. The Facebook post for the film reached over 15,000 people and some went on the view it on You Tube.
• School gate posters and maps with locations and 10 & 20 minute distances/times were created for all primary schools and secondary schools to support the theme “If it’s not far, leave the car” for local journeys to school/shops etc.
• A vehicle speed monitoring and awareness campaign was run outside school locations by staff and children using a hand-held speed radar gun.
• We provided several schools with new JRSO (Junior Road Safety Officer) Active travel and Walking bus support equipment and promotional materials.
• We purchased a fleet of Balance bikes and childrens scooters to deliver the training to children in school and in holiday Play settings.
• We purchased 12 litter picking packs for schools to carry out litter picks around their school sites on active travel routes. Through this initiative 1081 pupils were reached at primary schools and become more aware of active travel and the benefits of keeping the environment safe, clean and a more pleasant place to walk/wheel & cycle.
• 4 Bike repair kits including portable/foldable repair stands were provided to organisations that engage with young people.
• We engaged with a number of disability groups including the Torfaen Access Forum group including AT presentations, site meetings, walking through routes and consulting on improvement schemes.
• Freshers / Wellbeing event attended at Coleg Gwent 6th form college to give information to young people on active travel and road safety and gather feedback.
• Once again, this year, there has been an active travel emphasis in communications to Councillors and residents on SRiC (Safe Routes) and AT schemes being developed and constructed. Similarly, there was a greater active travel emphasis in Torfaen Highways responses to enquiries from residents and members of the public.
• There was a continued strong emphasis on AT provision when reviewing new Highways development requests and planning applications and departmental awareness of active travel is greater than ever within Torfaen County Borough Council.

The actions taken to secure new active travel routes and related facilities and improvements

• Constructed 2 new type Parallel crossings (zebra with cycle lane beside) and 1 new Toucan crossing on Cwmbran Drive AT route section 1 (top section) CW-FR-11 and widened part of the shared use route as an AT main scheme. Added dropped kerbs to roundabout crossing points. This section of the route now connects seamlessly to the previously widened section 2 below it.
• Upgraded the crossing point on South Street Sebastopol along the canal towpath AT route PO-FR-53 to a Toucan crossing to improve AT access and safety and reduced the steepness of the approaches along the towpath, as a major AT CA scheme.
• Constructed a major upgrade to walking and cycling access to Cwmbran stadium main entrance itself CW-FR-65 and to local AT approach routes TCBCINM33 and CW-FR-07B including many dropped kerbs at side roads. Added bike parking, e-bike charging, scooter parking and bike repair station facilities near the entrance.
• Installed more Dropped Kerbs (DK) on the Council’s DK improvement programme on active travel route BL-FR-03 Middle CoedCae, Blaenavon by Blaenavon primary school and widened the entrance gate area on AB-FR-02 by Garnteg primary school. Plus other DKs in response to residents requests. The total number of dropped kerb sets (pairs) added this year, including those within larger schemes is 53
• Designed and installed 25 new AT route signs including to recently installed bike repair stations.
• Removed one access gate on AT route TORFCR2 to improve access to destination and through route for disabled users.
• Progressed the design of the high priority St Davids road AT scheme. This is intended to be constructed over several phases and years and an AT main scheme was developed for the first and busiest section.
• Continued to progress Oakfield ATN scheme preparations for new AT shared use bridge.
• Continued to progress the design of the high priority Cwmbran Drive AT scheme section 3, and outline preparations for sections 4 to 6 to be constructed over several phases and years (the route will continue from the end of the previously constructed section 2).
• Ongoing and continuous review of active travel audits of all AT existing and proposed future routes in Torfaen to assess future work required to be undertaken.

Costs incurred for new active travel routes and facilities and improvements of existing active travel routes and related facilities carried out in the preceding full financial year

• £1,893,231 comprised from Welsh Government AT grants and AT main scheme match funding from Torfaen CBC
• In addition to the above, the following information provides an overview of infrastructure that has been implemented during the previous year.

Indicative spending for new active travel routes and facilities and improvements of existing active travel routes and related facilities funded or part funded by third parties.

• £130,000 – Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) - New bike and/or scooter parking shelters, new bike repair stations including installation. New section of ramped path and upgrading of the adjoining section plus new bench in Blaenavon park.
• £25,000 – Torfaen CBC – Dropped kerb improvement programme

Length of new routes (walking, cycling, shared use)

• Walking – 20 metres
• Cycling - 0
• Shared Use - 202 metres

Length of improved routes (walking, cycling, shared use)

• Walking - 260 metres
• Cycling - 0
• Shared Use - 1623 metres

New and improved active travel facilities

• As part of the Cwmbran Stadium main scheme we included bike parking, e-bike  charging, scooter parking and bike repair station facilities near the entrance.
• Installed new bike and/or scooter parking at 3 schools – Cwmbran High, Blaenavon and Garnteg.
• Installed 4 new bike repair stations in public locations beside main active travel routes - Cwmbran Boating Lake; Cwmbran Stadium; Station Rd Griffithstown, Pontypool Active Living Centre. (similar to example photo in section 2).
• Installed 1 new bench in Blaenavon.
• Installed 10 new AT movement counters at high priority locations to measure active travel usage in Torfaen on key routes. The new counters include telemetry to report data back to a host on a daily basis. Data is then available for officers to review and analyse.