Council opening hours throughout Christmas
Some Westmorland and Furness Council offices will be closed over the Christmas and New Year Bank Holidays. Read the full list of Council opening hours during the festive period.
Behavioural change initiatives
What we do to help people travel more actively and the partner organisations we work with to help change the way people travel.
Our activity is focused on active travel to school active travel 'social prescribing' where we work with health services to encourage active travel to improve health.
Active travel to school
Along with Active Cumbria we support and promote a range of initiatives to help children and schools incorporate active travel into their daily journeys. This includes:
- Bikeability – an accredited national training programme that provides the skills and confidence for pupils to navigate the roads safely via bicycle
- Feet First 5-day Active Travel Challenge – encouraging school communities to get active on the school run during a specific week each term
- #StaySafeGetActive 5-minute walking bubbles – a simple and effective scheme to encourage parents to park at least 5 minutes away from school in order to create a safer space for children to walk, cycle or scoot to school
- School Streets – restrictions on traffic to make roads outside of schools pedestrian and cyclist zones
- Sustrans, Big Walk and Wheel – supporting the national initiative with additional local prizes
- Living Streets, Walk to School – encouraging participation through local initiatives and competitions
- Walking Bus – advice and support to enable schools to establish walking bus scheme
- Park and Stride - advice and support to enable schools to establish a suitable park and stride scheme
- Resources for Schools – free downloadable resources for schools to help support active travel on the school commute.
Active Cumbria website – Active Travel to Schools has more information.
Active travel social prescribing
Cumbria is one of only eleven local authorities in England to receive funding from the Department for Transport (DfT) Active Travel Social Prescribing Pilot Delivery Fund.
The £1.5 million awarded is being used to deliver a three-year programme of activities which aim to support, encourage, and enable people to be more active by cycling, walking and wheeling for everyday journeys.
The ‘Travel Actively' programme is delivered by Active Cumbria in Barrow-in-Furness and Carlisle.
Travel Actively - Active Cumbria gives information on how to get involved.