Smarter Choices, Smarter Places – supporting active and sustainable travel in local communities

Active and sustainable travel is gaining momentum in line with Scotland’s ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions to net-zero by 2045. We continue to improve our health, create safer communities, and reduce environmental impacts by supporting more people in Scotland to walk, wheel, and cycle for everyday short journeys, or combine these with public transport for longer trips.

To enable and empower communities to choose change travel habits, we need good infrastructure, coupled with encouragement, support and guidance on how to change attitudes and behaviours around how we travel. 

But what is active and sustainable travel? What are the benefits of being active? And how can we, at Paths for All, support Scotland to change travel habits?

In this episode of Voices of the Walk, we’re joined by members of our Smarter Choices, Smarter Places team who share with us how our Open Fund is supporting organisations and community groups across Scotland to design, plan and deliver a wide range of projects to get people walking, wheeling, cycling and using public transport.

In 2022/23 with an uplift in funding and support from Transport Scotland, we’re awarding £5Million to projects which encourage active and sustainable travel in local communities. Our dedicated Smarter Choices, Smarter Places team provide the information, guidance and support to help with your application through our Open Fund, from discussion and design to delivery and evaluation.

We’ll hear from Emma Hutchison (Senior Development Officer) and James Gray (Development Officer) who share with us what active and sustainable travel means, and the incredible benefits communities can enjoy by being active. They’ll also discuss stand out projects supported by our Smarter Choices, Smarter Places Open Fund.

Transcript

Introduction (00:00) Welcome to Voices of the Walk, Paths for All’s everyday walking podcast. Our mission is to get Scotland walking; everyone, everywhere and every day. In this podcast series, we’ll be hearing from a variety of Scotland’s walking champions who are helping make our vision a reality.

Interviewer (00:18) In this episode, we’re joined by Emma and James from our Smarter Choices, Smarter Places team here at Paths for All. We’ll be exploring what active and sustainable travel is, and how our Open Fund supports local active travel projects to help people live happier, healthier and greener lives. Let’s hand over to the team to find out a little bit more about who they are and what they do. 

Emma (00:39) Hello, I’m Emma, I’m a relatively new addition to the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places team here at Paths for All. I’m the Senior Development Officer for the Open Fund. So, in terms of active travel, I’m a keen walker myself, I love getting up into the hills at the weekend with the family, I also love it for getting to A to B - I think it’s a great way of getting about. In terms of cycling, I think it would be kindest to describe myself as an aspiring cyclist.

Here at the programme, I’m mostly assessing applications, reviewing reports and alongside that we are supported by Transport Scotland, so, part of the role is working with them just to make sure they have what they need from the programme as well.

James (01:27) Hi, I’m James, I’m the Development Officer for the Smarter Choices, Smarter Places fund. I work alongside Emma, of course, assessing applications, reviewing reports and also working with the Network as well. I’m a keen cyclist and walker, I cycled to the station and I got the train in.

Host (01:51) Welcome to you both, thanks for joining us for today. For those of us who might not be aware of the Smarter Choices Smarter Places programme, can you tell us a little bit more about what the programme involves?

Emma (02:01) So, here at the Smarter Choices Smarter Places team, James and I look after the Open Fund. We also work closely with Graham who oversees all the different SCSP elements. So, the pot itself for the Open Fund is £5Million this year, so, that’s quite a big pot of money. James and I are essentially working to make sure that this public money goes to the right projects. In terms of what the right projects are, we’re looking for projects that can offer communities here in Scotland the support, the guidance and the encouragement that we all need to make that change and get us out of our cars. 

So, James and I are assessing the applications, reviewing the reports to make sure we’re investing in the right projects that give us that behaviour change. But beyond that, we’re also pulling together the evidence and learning, working to share this with our networks across the country and all interested communities. And we’re working to build relationships with and also between our projects, because we all know behaviour change is really, really difficult and it’s not going to happen unless we take that collective approach across the board.

Interviewer (03:17) One of the central aspects your team focuses on is active and sustainable travel. That’s not a new thing, of course, but in line with Scotland’s commitment to net zero emissions by 2045, it has gained considerable traction. For those who don’t know what active and sustainable travel involves, can you tell us a little bit more?

James (03:35) It’s a question that seems quite simple but actually there’s quite a lot of hidden complexities there. Sustainable Transport Network is one that has the capacity to support the mobility and needs of society that’s least damaging to the environment. But it’s not just an environmental thing as well, it should have a positive contribution to the social and economic sustainability of communities that they serve. So, cars, for example, we know that they produce polluting gasses, take up unequal amount of space and reduce physical activity. So, an alternative to this could be shared transport, such as trains or buses. On top of that as well, we’ve got active travel, and that’s to do with being propelled by your own movement. So, walking, wheeling or cycling.

Emma (04:31) I think most, if not all, of us today have an idea why active and sustainable travel is important. There are a few different angles you can come from when you’re talking about it, but essentially, we’re facing some real challenges in society at the moment in terms of our individual health and wellbeing, in terms of community health and in terms of the wider environment. So, essentially what we’re looking at is making our communities happier, healthier and greener with what is a really simple solution. Now, I say simple, I add quickly that that doesn’t mean easy. I think that’s a really important distinction to make. 

So, we have the evidence out there to show us that walking, cycling, using public transport is a great way of improving our health, the health of communities. We’re looking at improved levels of our own fitness, we’re looking at better mental health, better social health. And I think one of the big picture things we’re thinking about is transport is the biggest emitter in Scotland. So, whatever we can do as a society to move away from those high emitting modes of transport. Use public transport, use shared transport, use active travel, getting out and walking. You’re already looking at a huge contribution to your net zero targets. You’re looking at less congestion, you’re looking at less air pollution. And I think, as well, it’s important to highlight that it is also a more inclusive way for us all to get about our cities, our villages, and where we live.

Interviewer (06:08) Now, one aspect of your work you wanted to share today, is the Open Fund, which has recently celebrated an exciting uplift in funding for the next year. Can you tell us a little bit more on that?

James (06:18) So, the main aim of the Fund is to change people’s everyday behaviour, and we do this through a grant programme that’s supported by Transport Scotland, and it’s open to public, third sector and community groups. The Fund this year has had an uplift, so we’re very thankful to have £5Million pounds, up from two and a half. And we provide grants anywhere from five to 50,000 thousand pounds. And that’s for 50% of the project costs, so there would be a contribution from the organisation as well.

As we’ve already covered, we really focus on behaviour change projects, so we support things from car free days to maps and route making, car sharing or even feasibility studies. All we ask is for the projects to hit one of our outcomes - we have six outcomes that you choose prior to making your application. We don’t fund capital so it’s not to do with buying bikes or building cycle ways or bike shelters, for example, it is that behaviour change element. If you are interested in applying, you can put through an EOI which is just a short 200 words and gives us a flavour of what the project is and then we can review that and either go forward with it or provide you extra resources or signpost you elsewhere and that can be done on the Paths for All website.

Emma (07:52) It’s a really important tool for harnessing the benefits that can be offered by looking at supporting behaviour change. James and I were chatting it through before and we know infrastructure is a big, big part of the picture but it’s not the whole story. We need the infrastructure changes, but we also need individual communities to be supported to make the behaviour change. So, that’s what we’re looking to do. We’re looking to join up communities across Scotland and help them to drive that behaviour change.  

One of the great things about the Open Fund is that we do have a lot of partners that are, their organisations are purely focused on active travel or purely focused on physical health. And we love working with those organisations, but we actually work across a whole spectrum of organisations beyond that, as well. We’re looking at organisations who have any particular focus but who recognise that active travel and physical health is important for their own communities or their own workforce. So, we also work with schools, we work with charities who have maybe a focus on a particular condition. Really a whole range of different community and third sector organisations which I think is a real strength of the Open Fund. 

Interviewer (09:14) You’ve already shared with us what the Open Fund is. Over the next year, of course, funding will be awarded to successful active and sustainable travel projects. It may be the first time for some, but can you share with us a little bit more about the support that applicants can enjoy as part of the application process.

Emma (09:32) So, I think here at the Open Fund we’ve tried to create a really supportive application process that gives a really clear sense of what the Fund is here for. It’s focused squarely on behaviour change and active travel. So, around this, we’ve tried to build a system that means that applicants are really supported throughout the whole process from the point of which they make their first expression of interest right through until the conclusion of the project and beyond if they’re then looking at making additional applications. So as James mentioned, we’ve structured it around our six key outcomes, and these are all mapped against the key stages of behaviour change. Now, when you first dig into that it can look a little bit complex on first glance but essentially all it means is that we are ready to cover the whole gambit of behaviour change right from the point where you need to be gathering the evidence and you need to be gathering the learning to find out what it is you need to do right through to doing it, so, it’s that whole spectrum.

So, beyond that we’ve also tried to make sure that our own processes are as flexible and responsive as possible. James and I always try to be as available as we can. We’ve here for chats before your EOI (expression of interest), if you want to talk through your project, that’s not a problem. It’s not like that’s cheating before you submit your application. We like to work it through with the projects themselves, it gives us all the best possible outcome. And beyond that we also aim to ensure the impact of each project is maximised by creating opportunities for projects to get together with like-minded organisations to share their learning, to share their challenges and talk those as well. We do that through our Smarter Choices, Smarter Places Network, but I think maybe James can add a few more things there because that sits on his desk.

James (11:29) So, another thing we provide is the Network - that’s where we invite all the grant recipients to come along. We run events, so, they’re split into thematic and geographical. So, for the thematic events, this year we’ve got one based around walking, so we’ll get projects that have performed really well at walking or have had a walking project. And they’ll share what went on during the project, their learning and it provides a good opportunity for the groups to come together and learn a bit and see if anything can be adopted into their programmes. Last year we did a shared mobility hub, so this brought together projects that were involved in this – a really good learning opportunity.

So, we also run geographic events. This will take projects from a specific area, for example, the Forth Valley. They’ll come together, provide peer support and we’ll discuss successes, challenges all in a discussion format.

Interviewer (12:30) The Open Fund is now celebrating its fifth year, and since 2018 has supported over 500 projects. We’re interested in hearing more about how the support that the Open Fund has offered these projects, and its benefits to their local communities. Do you have examples that you can share with us to demonstrate the support that’s been provided?

Emma (12:47) So, thinking about recent projects that we’ve been working with that have really stood out. The one that came to mind for me was the Glenboig Development Trust Association. So Glenboig is a small village near Coatbridge in North Lanarkshire and over the past few years they’ve been working really hard just to reduce the community’s reliance on cars. And they’ve been doing this in some really interesting ways. So, the way the Open Fund has supported them has been largely through staff costs. They have an Active Travel Coordinator in post and they’re taking a real community-driven approach to making those changes.

In terms of what they actually do within their project – it’s a real spread of activities - a active focus on walking and a focus on cycling. One of the interesting things is they do a walking bus. They do that to the local primary schools and that’s several points along the way. If you don’t know what a walking bus is, they have several the equivalent of ‘bus stops’ but kids who live in the local area will congregate at each stop and they’ll walk to school as a group. So that’s just a really nice way for the kids to start the day, as well. So they do their walking bus, they do pram walks, led walks. In terms of their cycling they have cycle hire that’s actually available 24 hours a day which is a brilliant community resource. They do bikeability, bike maintenance sessions, so a really broad range of activities across the board. And I think one of the reasons that stood out to me – well there were a few reasons. The first being it was a really evidence driven approach. They relied on their active travel survey to look at the needs of the community and they found out that 15% of the kids making their way to school would walk to school more than once a week. But actually 60% of them would be willing to walk so immediately they knew they had a group of people there who were receptive to change if they could create the right offer for them. So, I think that’s a really good starting point for any project. 

In terms of how they carried on, I think what really stood out as well, was a participatory approach that they took, thar’s a sort of co-design. They worked with the young people in the schools, and although they had ideas about what the key routes might be and how they might plan the walking bus, what they actually found was that the pupils had some suggestions to make there that made them revisit. Because, obviously, it’s the kids that hold the knowledge for that, so they were just really responsive, really open to hearing that which again is a great place to be in terms of moving your project forward successfully. 

Another thing that really stood out was the inclusive nature of the project. They didn’t set out to have a hugely inclusive project, it just seemed to be part of their mindset – it just seemed to be a really natural progression that as part of their project’s offering, they would have adapted cycles that just seemed par for the course which was a really great place to build from. So, those are a few of the reasons the project stood out for me, and they’ve been having great outcomes as a result of all those reasons. Already they have cut car journeys to the local school by 91 car journeys a week, which I think is a really significant number. And they just seem to be a really switched on, innovative, energetic project. So, it’s great to see what they’ll be moving forward to, as well.

James (16:26) So, one of the standout projects for me is Perth Autism Support. So, they’ve received two years of funding from us for two full projects and the funding was just short of £30,000 for each. Their main aim was to increase the knowledge and confidence for autistic teens to access public pathways and transport. So, they did this by developing independent travel plans and it was for 40 teens on the autism spectrum. They had group workshops to prepare for the practicalities of being out and about so, reading timetables, problem solving and safety, as well. And they also developed a lot of resources which were really useful in upscaling and training the group. 

That was the first year, for the second year they really stepped it up and increased the reach and delivery. They were involved in pop up independent travel events with travel operators such as Stagecoach and Scotrail. They also had training sessions where they brought along parents and carers, education staff and frontline workers, just to train them about the needs which can vary quite vastly. They’re also involved in consultation and advertising, so really, being informed by the group and further promoting the needs and extra support that could be needed here. We’ve been in discussion with them in regards to a potential walk and talk group. So, that’s one that’ll be a group of ten, they’ll get out for a walk, socialise but also do some life events – so maybe, perhaps ordering at a café. In terms of the results, the first year they aimed for 40 – they exceeded that and they had 47. And for the year after that they managed to engage with 93 in their group.

Interviewer (18:26) Thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been great to hear more about the programme and what the available funding can do for local active travel projects. For those who are interested in learning more, what’s the next step?

Emma (18:38) As we’re looking at the year ahead, and we’ve had our funding doubled to £5Million, which is fantastic news. I think there’s also a real opportunity for communities and organisations out there to think about what active travel looks like for them, how can it be improved, what might you like to think about doing.

James (18:58) So, we’re keen to hear from you if you’ve got an idea or if you simply want to discuss. And you can contact us through emailing us - our email address is SCSP@pathsforall.org.uk.