Worth Every Step – ATE Delivery Plan

In June this year Active Travel England (ATE) published its Delivery Plan 2026/7 to 2029/30, called Worth Every Step.

Foreword

In the Foreword, Chris Boardman says the focus will be on a more active school run, and a high-quality national network with local routes to high streets, workplaces and transport hubs.

ATE will work with local authorities to build their skills and provide expert design and planning advice.

Why This Plan Matters – Lilian Greenwood

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport Lilian Greenwood says that the government’s ambition is to make walking, wheeling and cycling the cheapest, safest and easiest choice for everyday journeys.

She says ATE will raise standards in street design, build lasting local skills within councils, and ensure value for money.

Vision, Purpose and Strategic Priorities

Worth Every Step supports the government’s CWIS3 investment strategy.

The Vision in Worth Every Step is therefore the same as in CWIS3 – for walking, wheeling and cycling to be an affordable, safe and accessible choice for everyone.

The plan’s Purpose is to raise standards in the design of streets and places, making everyday journeys easier, healthier and cheaper.

The three Strategic Priorities are:

• enable cheaper, safer and healthier journeys, especially to school
• create healthier, better-connected new developments and
• build local skills and capacity

Four-Year Road Map

Each of the four years of the plan has a description of what is to be achieved.

2026/7 is called Setting the Direction. This includes launching a new statutory planning consultation service, and setting baselines for monitoring impact.

2027/8 is Streamlining Our Support. Among the expected outcomes is publishing the first national active travel network, including a baseline map; and setting up dedicated support teams to local authorities to help unblock stuck schemes.

2028/9 is Showing Our Impact. One of the items here is delivering a digital mapping portal to show new and improved routes as well as planned and funded schemes.

2029/30 is Realising Results. The plan promises completion of the school routes programme, simple side-road zebras delivered nationwide, consistent wayfinding design, and comprehensive national network plans in place.

Strategic Context

The Strategic Context chapter says that Worth Every Step responds to CWIS3 and the government’s integrated transport strategy, Better Connected.

The plan says that effective public investment in affordable transport choices is important. This requires better streets, routes and place-making.

High-quality active travel infrastructure which enables people to build activity into everyday life will contribute to the government’s mission to improve health and well-being.

It will also help the government achieve its economic growth mission – improving access to jobs, education and services, supporting vibrant high streets, reducing congestion, and reducing household costs.

ATE will provide expert planning advice and support a shift to vision-led planning, in support of the government’s objective to build more homes and create better places.

CWIS3 Targets

CWIS3 focuses on enabling more children to walk, wheel and cycle to school.

ATE will help local and combined authorities by:

• providing statutory planning advice
• quality assurance of schemes
• building officer skills and
• improving the availability and use of data

ATE’s service offer to local authorities includes professional development, early conversations to shape ideas, co-design for network plans and scheme development, design review and technical assurance, and scheme monitoring support.

ATE will use Local Performance Indicators to see whether progress is being made on the ground at local and regional levels.

The LPIs are split into leading and lagging indicators: leading indicators track capability, adoption of standards etc, and lagging indicators track outcomes such as network use.

Local authorities have targets in Outcomes Frameworks tied to the integrated funding settlements they receive from government. ATE says:

‘We will develop methods to track the number of kilometres of active travel infrastructure, regardless of funding source.

Through the roll-out of counters we will measure how new infrastructure increases use.

We will also consider the road safety impact of infrastructure and how many more people are becoming physically active’.

Strategic Priorities

The plan’s Strategic Priorities are:

• Enable cheaper, safer, healthier journeys, particularly to school
• Create healthier, better-connected new developments
• Build local skills and capacity to plan, design and deliver high-quality initiatives
• Operate as an effective, trusted and high-performing agency

How We Work

The plan says that ATE is leaning more and more into capability building and providing guidance, advice and tools.

They are going to move to a regional structure and help build teams within authorities.