The School Mile

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Introduce a ½ mile radius exclusion zone around schools

The idea is to get all Scottish school children to walk, cycle, skateboard or scooter the last ½ mile to their school in the morning and to do the same when leaving school. To help achieve this, a complementary aspect of the initiative would be to ban the use of private cars to transport children to school within a ½ mile radius from schools. This would be a nationwide campaign with the multiple aims of getting children more physically active (thereby helping to address obesity and sedentary behaviour), reducing carbon emissions and improving air quality around schools. Reducing car traffic around schools would also make it safer to walk and cycle to school. Children walking ½ a mile to and from school five days a week would be achieving the ‘Stirling’ (St Ninian’s Primary) mile a day throughout the school week. Active travel routes to school could be designed and identified. Children would be learning about nationally and globally important issues and would be directly engaged in addressing these. Parents and schools would be involved and so other potential benefits would be in changing cultures, attitudes and behaviours in the wider public in relation to travel choices and our environment.