Over 25 schools across Leicestershire demonstrated their artistic talents by entering a competition run by the county council’s active travel brand, Choose How You Move.
Pupils from a range of years put pen to paper to design banners to be displayed outside their school which encourage parents, teachers, pupils, and passers-by to choose walking, cycling and other alternatives to using the car.
Blake Pain, county council cabinet member for environment and transport, visited Fleckney Primary School to present their winning banner to Ava Machett in Year 4 and he heard about the school’s hard work to encourage both pupils and parents to take up active travel.
On his visit, Mr Pain said;
Every year we run this competition it gets bigger and better than before. It is obvious from the entries that students across Leicestershire really understand the message of active and sustainable travel and why it is so important.
Travelling actively to school has many benefits such as reducing congestion and improving road safety as well as helping students' concentration and reaching the recommended daily amount of exercise. Congratulations to all who took part, I am sure these fantastic banners will have people thinking twice about taking their car.
Person:Blake Pain. lead member for environment and transport The banners make up a small part of the work the Choose How You Move team undertake to encourage schools to implement initiatives to make it easier to walk, cycle, car share and take public transport to school.
Tim Leah, headteacher at Fleckney Primary, said: "Congratulations to Ava and our runners up Daisy, Iris, Tim and Ebba. We are very keen to support the campaign for active travel at our school. We want our children to lead healthy lives and to reduce congestion outside of the school gates. Ava's banner 'Glide don't drive' captured this brilliantly."
Alongside schools, the council is committed to helping reduce carbon emissions and improving air quality across Leicestershire and to become carbon neutral by 2030.