Walking Communities

Walking and wheeling help create healthier, happier and better-connected communities. Encouraging walking and wheeling in our communities takes action on two levels: offering more opportunities for people to walk and ensuring good path networks that are safe and accessible to all.

What is our Walking Communities programme?

We develop and deliver bespoke Walking Communities projects in villages, towns and cities across Scotland. Our team engages with local stakeholders to make sure these projects respond to the needs of local people and address barriers to walking.

Working in partnership with local people and partners, these projects aim to:

• Improve the physical environment: identifying barriers and opportunities to improve local paths and path networks.
• Support behaviour change: increasing opportunities for everyone in the community to walk and wheel more.
• Increase collaboration: promoting and supporting increased collaboration with local stakeholders to prioritise walking and wheeling.

We know from experience that meaningful community engagement takes time. Our Walking Communities projects are designed to support individual communities for up to four years. This ensures communities are fully involved in the process and that together we create lasting, meaningful change.

To support involvement and empower communities to take action, our team work directly within local communities to co-design and deliver our Walking Communities projects. This includes:

• Stakeholder engagement: we engage with local people and partners, including community members and groups, local authority partners and other interested stakeholders to support the development of a local Walking Forum.
• Walking Action Plans: we work alongside the local Walking Forum to develop and implement a Walking Action Plan. This bespoke Action Plan responds to local priorities and circumstances and includes key areas of support from Walking Scotland.
• Walking Scotland support: our Walking Communities projects are informed by our expertise in walking and wheeling. They offer communities the opportunity to engage with our Step Count Challenge, Walking Schools programme, Scottish Health Walk Network and Technical Path Advice and Guidance. We also support communities to plan local walking and wheeling events, days of action, and so much more.

Get in touch

Want to know how we can support your community to walk and wheel more? Or want more information about our Walking Communities programme? Use our contact form to get in touch.