National Cycle to School Week-Time to ditch your car and get on your bike to improve your child’s wellbeing.

Havering climate activist Ruth Kettle-Frisby today writes in the Havering Daily on the importance of children’s health and well being and the vital benefits on our planet by ditching your car and cycling to school.

Monday 3rd to Friday 9th is the annual Cycle to School Week. This is an important initiative for a multitude of reasons, not least given the alarming levels of air pollution that we know affect the most vulnerable in our communities first.

This is a really positive opportunity for children and families to benefit in multiple ways from cycling to school. I know that my colleagues in Havering Climate Coalition – and in particular, our wonderful Havering Cyclists – strongly support this event. Cycling will save us money, contribute positively to our physical, mental and psychological health, and is an excellent choice to protect both our environment and our lungs.

It will be interesting to see what is being put in place in schools around Havering to promote this community event, and how many residents in Havering are participating this week.

This sort of event promises to be a lot of fun, but also has the potential to communicate a powerful message about our collective desire for increased access to active travel in Havering. We have much to be proud of here in Havering, which is one of the best boroughs in London for green spaces, and why shouldn’t we build on this? We could lead the way in reducing carbon emissions and getting our children out of harmful, polluted environments as much as possible.

If, on the other hand, community involvement is low, it would be interesting to discover the reasons for this and their implications for Havering’s infrastructure, climate and travel priorities. How can we improve access to active travel for children with disabilities; who are chronically ill; or have mental health conditions? Or rather, how can those of us who are fortunate enough not to be clinically vulnerable do our bit to protect those who are, as well as glean multiple benefits ourselves?

How can we prevent poverty from being a barrier to active travel options? Equipment can be expensive and complicated to those who aren’t used to it, and many will not have time to devote to learning the highway code, for instance.

I really hope Havering residents get involved as much as possible this week, however this doesn’t seem to have been widely publicised in our borough. Either way, for the sake of the health and wellbeing of our children – and the good of the planet that we inhabit – these are conversations it’s high time we started having.

Please join us on Tuesday 4th for Havering Green Forum, if you’d like to learn more and have your say about active travel and cleaner air in Havering.

You can get involved with Cycle To School Week by following this link: https://www.bikeability.org.uk/cycletoschoolweek/