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Walking to Work

Do you fancy taking a walk during your lunch break today? Need some help with planning a route? Use the helpful widget below, from Walkit.com, to generate a round walk from your building.

Walk to Work Week 2011

The 2011 event will take place between 9th and 13th May. As always, there will be lots of support available from Living Streets, including their online tool to track progress throughout the week. For more information, please visit the Walk to Work Week website at: www.walkingworks.org.uk/walk-to-work-week-2011.


Studies show that walking can:

- Reduce the risk of coronary heart disease and stroke;
- Lower blood pressure;
- Reduce high cholesterol and improve blood lipid profile;
- Reduce body fat;
- Enhance mental well being;
- Increase bone density, hence helping to prevent osteoporosis;
- Reduce the risk of cancer of the colon;
- Reduce the risk of non insulin dependant diabetes;
- Help to control body weight;
- Help osteoarthritis;
-Help flexibility and co-ordination hence reducing the risk of falls.

(Sources: Davison & Grant 1993, US Dept of Health 1996, British Heart Foundation 2000)

We have come up with a few ideas which might help promote walking within your organisation;

  • Pedometer Challenge!! Within your organisation organise teams of 4 or 5 and whichever team walks the highest number of steps over the week wins a prize. Pedometers can be bought from the Walking Works website.

  • Organise a photography competition amongst your staff members as they walk to work, during work or during their personal time and the best photo wins. If the winning photos could be sent from each organisation, we would like to post these on our website and in our newsletter.

  • Take part in Walk to Work Week annually!

Useful Links and Downloads;

Sustrans Active Travel Website

Active Travel Toolkit publications free to download

Walk to Work Week

Walking Route Planner

SWELTRAC Walk to Work Week Information Newsletter

Email Templates

Walk to Work Week 2010

The National Walk to Work Week, run by Walking Works, was held between 26th and 30th April 2010. SWELTRAC encouraged people to incorporate walking into their daily routine by walking to work and/or during work and supporting them with tips, advice and motivation.

SWELTRAC promoted the Walking Works – Walk to Work Week website and encouraged all organisations to register. The online tool allowed workplaces to track the collective miles walked by their staff as well as allowing individual employees to track their own progress. As an added incentive SWELTRAC organised a prize draw for all the organisations who registered with the walking works website. The prize consisted of a scrumptious breakfast catering for up to 20 members of staff. We are pleased to announce that the lucky winners are LGC!

Overall, Walk to Work Week 2010 proved really successful with 21 organisations registering on the official Walk to Work Week website. The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames had the most participants across SWELTRAC's five boroughs with eight organisations taking part in the challenge. In addition seven NHS sites also signed up to the event.

Over the course of the week, the nation collectively walked a total of 71,602 miles, which is the equivalent of 19,889 muffins or five times around the world at London's latitude! We hope you all enjoyed 2010's event and hopefully we'll see you participate again in 2011!