£10m transport scheme will ban cars from roads around schools

Published on Tuesday 5 December 2006 01:28

CAR-FREE zones around schools are to be piloted within two years as part of a £10 million Scottish Executive scheme to tackle the school run.

Tavish Scott, the transport minister, will announce the plans as part of the Executive's new national transport strategy to be published today.

He will call for development of "innovative and sustainable" alternatives for pupils travelling to and from school, including exclusion zones in which all or most vehicles will be banned.

This will be accompanied by walking and cycling paths and 20mph zones, and the encouragement of "walking buses" - accompanied groups of children - and "walk once a week" initiatives.

Mr Scott is understood to be keen to ban all vehicles from schools taking part in the pilot scheme, but he has acknowledged that access may be required for some pupils, such as those with disabilities.

The minister said earlier this year that the Executive faced "some pretty hard decisions" over restricting car use to boost the proportion of children cycling or walking to school. More than one primary pupil in four is driven in.

Mr Scott will also seek backing for "sustainable travel demonstration" towns and villages to cut car use overall.

The move, which would involve local authorities and the new public-private regional transport partnerships, would see priority given to cycling, walking and 20mph "home zones". Home working would be encouraged to cut commuting.

The strategy will set out broad transport plans for the next 20 years, and be accompanied by separate strategies for rail, bus and freight.

However, they will not involve any commitment to major new projects, such as high-speed rail links. These are being considered separately by a strategic projects review, which is expected to be completed late next summer.

A section of the review on cross-Forth travel is being fast-tracked so ministers can make a decision on a new Forth crossing after the Holyrood election in May.

The strategy is expected to confirm the Executive's traffic stabilisation targets have been scrapped in favour of goals based on congestion and emissions.

However, TRANSform Scotland, the public transport campaign group, said a replacement carbon target would be insufficient because it did not cover the wider impacts of transport, such as air and noise pollution, congestion costs and the wider impact on the environment.

The group called instead for strengthening of the existing traffic target - 2021 levels pegged at those of 2001 - with interim targets and an action plan, which it said was backed by the Scottish Parliament's climate change inquiry last year.