A welcome step: what the new cycling and walking strategy means for health equity

On 12 June 2026, the government published its third cycling and walking investment strategy (CWIS3), alongside Active Travel England’s Worth Every Step delivery plan for 2026 to 2030. It’s a genuinely ambitious package – a projected £4.5 billion over five years, a target for 55% of short trips in towns and cities to be walked or cycled by 2035, and a goal of 60% of children travelling actively to school. We welcome it.

HEG responded to the CWIS3 consultation last December, setting out why active travel is one of the most direct contributions transport policy can make to preventing ill health and narrowing health inequalities.

Why this matters for prevention

Active travel is rarely framed as health policy, but it should be. Walking, wheeling and cycling are among the most accessible, low-cost ways for people to build physical activity into everyday life – and, as the Chief Medical Officer reminds us, the biggest health gains come when people who currently do nothing start to do something. The strategy estimates that getting more people moving could free up around 1.7 million GP appointments a year and prevent 4.4 million sick days. For families, swapping a second car for short active trips could save roughly £1,700 a year.

What stands out this time is the cross-government framing. CWIS3 brings transport, health and local government together, ties active travel explicitly to the 10 Year Health Plan, and puts the school run front and centre. We support this approach – habits that are formed early, in the places people live and learn, are what make them stick.

Where the strategy reflects what we called for

Three of our consultation priorities come through clearly:

• A focus on the everyday journey: The emphasis on safer routes to school and simple crossings connecting homes with high streets and local services mirrors our call for a settings-based approach – building active travel into the places people use every day, not just commuter corridors or leisure routes.
• Health and equity as outcomes, not by-products: The strategy’s recognition that even small increases in activity reduce pressure on the NHS and help narrow inequalities reflects the prevention case we made.
• A bigger role for local leaders: Giving local authorities more say in shaping delivery matches our view that equity is won or lost at the local level.

Where we’ll keep pushing

In our response, we argued that ambition only contributes to equitable outcomes if a few things hold true in delivery:

• Funding has to follow need: Short-term, competitive bidding disadvantages exactly the areas with the highest inactivity and the lowest capacity. We called for stable, multi-year revenue funding weighted towards deprivation, ill health and transport poverty – so investment narrows gaps rather than widening them.
• Inequalities need measuring, not just mentioning: Headline targets can rise while inequalities stay flat. Monitoring should track who benefits – by deprivation, disability, gender and age – not only the national average.
• Anchor institutions are underused:  Schools, NHS estates, and workplaces are powerful settings for normalising active travel. The focus on active travel that our NHS Prevention Pledge, Local Authority Healthy Weight Declarations, and School’s Pledge shows what’s possible when these settings are mobilised.
• The barriers people actually face deserve attention: Pavement parking, unsafe crossings and poor connections to affordable food shape whether walking and wheeling feel realistic – and they fall hardest on disabled people, older adults, families and those on lower incomes.
• Personal safety must be central to active travel: Women and girls need routes that are not only well-lit and well-designed, but where harassment and harmful behaviours are actively challenged. Our “Are you onside?” project is delivering culture change in Liverpool City Region but could be better supported by improved infrastructure.

What happens next

The opportunity now is to turn record investment into genuinely fairer outcomes, making the cheapest, healthiest way to travel the easiest way to travel, for everyone, in every neighbourhood. We’ll keep working with local authorities, combined authorities, the NHS and partners across our region and beyond to help make that happen, and we’ll keep making the case that active travel is health policy by another name.

Matthew Philpott, Executive Director, Health Equalities Group, said:

“This is a serious commitment to active travel, and we welcome it. But record investment only becomes fairer health if it reaches the communities carrying the heaviest burden of ill health. The test now is delivery. Funding that follows need, and progress measured by who benefits, not just by national averages.”