Health benefits of active travel huge, but evidence key to engaging with detractors, says Whitty

At Active City Leicester, Professor Chris Whitty called on delegates to ‘respectfully’ treat those with genuine misgivings about cycling and walking schemes, and stressed the importance of connecting with people with most to gain from taking up active travel

Professor Chris Whitty addresses delegates at Active City Leicester via video link. PIC: Matthew Walker

Active travel practitioners should be respectful of those with legitimate concerns about changes to street infrastructure. They should also take an evidence-based approach to back up their case. This was the advice offered by Chief Medical Officer (CMO) for England Professor Chris Whitty at the Active City Leicester conference last week.

Speaking via video link, Whitty told delegates: “People in active transport are really passionate about what they do and simply can’t understand why others don’t agree with them. It is really important to take people along a path rather than implying that actually they simply haven’t understood the issue, because usually they have understood it from a different perspective.”

One example of this is where taxi drivers oppose a new cycle lane, said Whitty. “We need to listen to them rather than try and override them in the first instance. Try and work out where we have a shared agenda.”

As the Government’s Chief Medical Adviser and head of the public health profession, Whitty admitted he approached active travel issues “firmly from a health perspective”.

Public health was a recurring theme during the two-day event, sponsored by Active Travel England and AtkinsRéalis, hosted by Leicester City Council and organised by Landor LINKS. Whitty underlined the need to build dialogues with those holding sometimes conflicting viewpoints within different Government departments. 

“I spend a lot of my time negotiating with other bits of Government and it is very important that we are respectful and take their arguments seriously and engage with them.”

The onus should be on providing evidence that “meets the questions people are asking rather than trying to side step them”, said Whitty. 

“From time to time public health people have a slight tendency to take the moral high ground rather than providing useful information that can help people who have legitimate concerns relating to traffic or economic issues.”

The health benefits of active transport “cannot be overstated”, Whitty said, adding that there is “virtually nobody who does not benefit by doing more exercise of whatever sort and the more you can build it into people’s lives the easier it is for them to do it”.

The impact is most dramatic for those who transition from no exercise to small amounts of activity, said Whitty. “You are clearly going to get the biggest benefits in helping people doing none or little to doing more. That is often harder than helping people who already doing quite a lot to do even more.”

This might be the case with older citizens that are not used to active travel or have recently had “a shock to their system” or been in hospital. “Starting or re-starting active transport is a lot harder, and we have to start where they start because the benefits to them if you can do that are so considerable.”

It is also important to instil the habit of active travel in the very young as they are “much more likely to continue with it through their lives than they would be subsequently”.

While walking and cycling routes should consider the needs of the elderly and very young they are often geared towards young adults although “the people who will benefit most from a health perspective are in fact not young adults”, Whitty pointed out.

Another group where there are lower levels of activity are some ethnic minority groups, he added. “This, again, is something we should think about carefully when planning where we are going to stop and start trips.”

The same applies to people living with disabilities, Whitty said, where “a level of safety which would be over-engineered for the average young adult is going to be really critical”. An example of this is to do with pavements, which are “genuine major barriers to some people walking rather than using non active transport mechanisms - small potholes that the average 30 year old would recover from immediately may be seriously problematic if you are someone who is cycling in their 70s or 80s with some degree of disability.”

Health problems are often at their greatest for those living in areas of deprivation. “But those are also some of the areas that are hardest to provide the necessary facilities for,” Whitty said. “It is important that people have a sense of personal safety and, for example, if they park their bicycle at the end of their trip there is a reasonable chance that they will find it when they return from the shop, hospital, mosque or wherever.”

Data from the Office for National Statistics clearly shows that in areas of deprivation not only do people live for a shorter period of time but they live up to 10 years longer in ill health than those who are living areas of affluence, Whitty told delegates.

“Lack of access to exercise is one of the things that drives that, so shortening the period of ill health means people can live longer and have fewer years in ill health.”

Whitty also highlighted the economic benefits of active travel. “We need to ensure that people don’t leave the workforce early due to ill health and active transport is a really good way to ensure people remain active and healthy through their working life. If we can keep people healthier we can take the pressure off both health care social services and others.”

Anything that shortens periods of ill health will significantly reduce the demands placed on the health and social care system, Whitty stated.  “There is also indirect effects, for example, if they have children who have to leave work early to be carers part or full time this will have a substantial knock-on effect to the economy.”

Responding to a question on the long-term health benefits of active travel, Whitty said that the Treasury tends to look for quick returns on investment. He compared this to the Tobacco and Vapes Bill, included in the King’s Speech, which will progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes.

“This will have a massive positive impact on health, but not in most cases for some decades, but it will have a very large effect.” He urged delegates to “never exaggerate the evidence”’, warning them that Treasury is “very good at spotting someone who is cooking the goose with this - they don’t like it and quite rightly”.

Professor Chris Whitty’s Active City Leicester presentation can be viewed on Landor LINKS' YouTube channel