QUICK WIN:

• Promote the health aspects of walking and not using the car

Walking is an excellent way to keep fit and it is free.  As it is best suited to journeys under two miles, the scope for encouraging staff to walk will vary greatly depending on the location of the workplace (relative to staff's home) and the type of site.

What can be done to encourage walking?

• raise awareness of the health benefits of walking through promotional material;
• produce a map showing safe walking routes (possibly including public transport and cycle routes);
• ensure that footpaths to and on the site are direct, clearly signposted, well lit, and well maintained;
• provision of cloakroom facilities with storage lockers and places to hang clothes and to dry hair; providing umbrellas (bearing the company logo?) to all staff who walk to work;
• for large sites, consider bringing facilities (eg hairdresser/ dry-cleaning) on-site to reduce the need for people to drive in lunchtimes;
• for staff who may have concerns with issues of personal security, make personal alarms available;
• introduce flexi-time working which could encourage more people to walk to work, particularly if staff have time constraints at either end of their working day (eg getting children ready for school); and
• introduce disincentives for driving to work such as provision of parking spaces on only some days of the week or not at all to people living within a certain distance of your site.