Janet Finch-Saunders AM today spoke on the Individual Members Debate on the Active Travel Act:

"I am grateful to the Member, Lee Waters AM, for instigating this particular debate, and also to put on record my thanks for the immense work carried out by Lee in his previous role with Sustrans. I know how hard you have worked and how your enthusiasm and passion has followed through helping us to implement a real focus for the main purpose of the Active Travel Act.

The health and well-being benefits of regular physical activity are well-documented, and even better realised.

Regular exercise can reduce mortality by 39%, and increase life expectancy, reducing the risk of a having stroke by 27%, of developing type 2 diabetes by 60%, of developing cancer of the colon, breast or womb by 20%, and can avoid brain shrinkage to help prevent dementia.

Endorphins and serotonin are boosted as a natural therapy for those experiencing feelings of low self-esteem, isolation and depression – a key contributory factor in term of feeding into our prevention, intervention and prudent healthcare agenda.

Just 35% of Welsh children undertake an hour of activity each day.

Those living within less than half a mile of their primary school, 30% are driven by car daily.

Just 2% cycle to primary school, and less than 1% to secondary.

Inactivity is an issue affecting adults also. 34% of people haven’t undertaken any form of active travel in the previous 7 days.

More startlingly, 35% had walked infrequently or not at all in the past 3 months. An appalling statistic!

Speak to anybody who has actually lost their own mobility – through a fall, or an accident – how their lives have changed, to the detriment, significantly.

Professor Stuart Cole noted in his report to the previous Minister last year that funding levels for active travel are low, at just £5 per head, compared to other areas of the UK, which spend twice as much.

Cycling England found that an annual investment of £10 per head resulted in an increase of 27% in cycling in their Cycling Demonstration Towns over three years.

In the Netherlands, they spend around £25 per head, and almost a third of people list cycling as their main form of transport.

In Sydney, they’ve seen an 82% increase in cycling in just two years as a result of a 5-year investment in the city’s cycling strategy, including the construction of 55km of cycle tracks, to be completed this year.

Compare that to us here in Wales.

Compliance by local authorities as regards the Active Travel Act Design Guidance is essential. They have undertaken technical training, but concerns around effective monitoring of active travel grant funding must be flagged up here today, and I would ask the Cabinet Secretary to advise on how this is being implemented.

Furthermore, wide and early engagement by local authorities in the next stage of the Active Travel Act is essential. The online tool, launched by Cycling UK, Sustrans Cymru, Living Streets and Welsh Cycling, to enable people to connect people with their local authority has seen over 600 people have engaged in this way – more than double the number engaged in the first phase. However, we urgently need to look at improving engagement with local sensory deprivation groups, to ensure the voices of those who are blind, partially sighted, or suffer hearing loss are represented.

The Welsh Government’s 2015 Annual Report on the Active Travel (Wales) Act fails to consider increased usage of active travel routes, and how this will be measured when the Integrated Network Maps are in place. I would therefore like to call on the Welsh Government for an externally commissioned review into how progress is reported under the Act – for example, using the experience of the Active Travel Board with an academic partner.

Finally, Sustrans and other stakeholders on the Active Travel Board have called for meaningful targets for increasing active travel to be introduced.

This is effective in Scotland where the set of Indicators in the Cycling Action Plan are linked to a 1% per annum increase in transport funding resulting in a much higher quality of reporting. Cabinet Secretary – can you advise as to whether you will seek to introduce such targets?

Llywydd, the ambitions of the Active Travel Act are to be commended, but far more needs to be done by Welsh Government to see these ambitions through."