We're working together with Active Travel England

We support the Government’s ambition that 50% of all trips in towns and cities will be on foot or by bike by 2030. We're also committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on our roads.

That's why we've signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Active Travel England to formalise stronger collaborative working between both our organisations.

Olympic legend and Active Travel England ambassador Chris Boardman MBE and our Chief Executive Nick Harris jointly signed the MOU.

This represents a mutual pledge to promote the benefits of active travel and a healthier future for all.

Chris Boardman was appointed National Active Travel Commissioner for Active Travel England in 2022. He's a former professional cyclist, participating in the Tour de France and winning a gold medal at the Summer Olympics in 1992.

The signing followed a meeting with Roads Minister Guy Opperman MP to promote closer working between the two organisations.

Chris Boardman has worked in a variety of safer walking and cycling advocacy roles including being appointed in 2017 as Transport for Greater Manchester’s Transport Commissioner. He works as a pundit and commentator on BBC and ITV and has a large social media presence with 195k followers on Twitter, 17k followers on Linked In, and 12.7k on Instagram. Chris said:

"It’s so important that our roads are safe and accessible to everyone, which means making sure schemes consider every journey, including for everyone walking, wheeling and cycling.

“Active Travel England is teaming up with National Highways to make sure people can enjoy safe and pleasant journeys to work, school or the shops under their own steam. In turn they will reap the health benefits, save money and make more sustainable travel choices – it’s win-win for everyone."

National Highways Chief Executive Nick Harris said:

“We are very pleased to be working more closely with Active Travel England. We have a track record of investing in active travel provision, but we want to encourage earlier consideration when developing road schemes.

“National Highways is developing ‘an approach to active travel’ which will set our role, vision and priorities for active travel during the next roads period. This MOU signing is an opportunity to publicly demonstrate our commitment to active travel.”  

How we'll work together

Through our Designated Funds programme, we've already invested £70m in active travel schemes to improve safety, enable more active journeys and improve customer experience on the road network. We're set to invest a further £22m before the end of the second road period (2020-2025).

We'll work with Active Travel England to deliver joined-up national and regional active travel. We'll be sharing designs and ensuring maximum value from active travel investment

In May 2024, we'll host our first director-level meeting with Active Travel England to oversee a programme of active travel collaboration. Themes for discussion include:

• strategic direction and priorities
• scheme development
• engagement.

One of the first things both our organisation will be doing is a pilot in the Tyne area, covering A1, A19 and A194 (M). The pilot will investigate how active travel investment across our roads network could enable more walking and cycling for local trips to access to:

• education
• employment
• services

Find out more

Our Active travel pages explain more about the schemes we've delivered and out partnerships