Question reference: S6W-27043
- Asked by: Graham Simpson, MSP for Central Scotland, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 25 April 2024
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Current status: Answered by Fiona Hyslop on 7 May 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government, regarding recommendation 8 of the second Strategic Transport Projects Review (STPR2), what proportion of children currently travel actively to get to school, and how this has changed since STPR2 was adopted.
Answer
According to the Scottish Government’s classification of school locations, 31% of the students attending publicly funded schools went to a school in a large urban area, and 42% attend schools in smaller urban areas. The remaining 27% attend schools in accessible small towns (9%), remote small towns (5%), accessible rural areas (8%) and remote rural areas (4%) ( Scottish Government, 2021 ).
According to the latest Hands Up Scotland Survey (HUSS) data, published in August 2023, the percentage of children travelling actively to school is 49.4%. Walking remains the most common mode of school travel at 42.6%. It is not currently possible to determine a change in this metric since the adoption of STPR2 as the latest HUSS data is from 2022. Data from the 2023 survey will be available later this year.
The latest HUSS data can be found here: Hands Up Scotland Survey - Sustrans.org.uk