Southampton City Council welcomed students from six secondary schools in the Southampton area to the first Modeshift Active Travel Ambassador event.

The event was opened by the Southampton-born, Team GB paralympic gold medallist, Aaron Phipps MBE who praised the students for being role models. Aaron won Gold at the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics in Wheelchair Rugby and spoke to students about his awe-inspiring journey, overcoming adversity and showing incredible resilience.

Aaron Phipps, MBE, said: “It was a pleasure to meet so many enthusiastic children from Southampton schools and hearing their really innovative ideas for active travel campaigns. I fully applaud and respect their efforts to get their school community out of cars and walking and wheeling to their school. It was great to hear that my speech at the event about what I have achieved in my life really inspired them to double their efforts and make their active travel campaigns a success. I wish them all the very best of luck!”

The Active Travel Ambassador (ATA) programme gives young people aged 11 upwards the confidence and skills to tackle the transport issues affecting their school. Schools have been supported by Modeshift’s ATA Coordinator and Southampton City Council’s and Hampshire County Council’s School Travel Team Officers to help them research and develop behaviour change campaigns, focusing on active travel and road safety which they presented to a panel of experts to secure funding to deliver their campaigns.

Students and staff from Oasis Academy Sholing, Redbridge Community School, St Anne’s Catholic School, St George Catholic College, Woodlands Community College and Noadswood School, all travelled sustainably to the event by walking, taking the bus or train. Those travelling by train to the event were supported by the Hampshire Community Rail Partnership with free rail tickets.

The student ambassadors passionately presented a range of ideas to address the issues they identified, including: campaigns to stop parents/carers’ vehicles idling outside of the school gate and to promote and encourage more students to cycle to school. Other campaigns focused on improving mental health through more active journeys, running inter school active travel competitions, engaging staff to travel more sustainably to school, and holding a sponsored walk to raise money to support further campaigns.

The thorough presentations and campaign ideas impressed the panel members, who then questioned the students about their campaigns. The panel decided that every school should receive £200 from Modeshift to deliver their campaigns and to build on the excellent work they had already completed.

The standout campaign, and an additional £50 of funding, was awarded to St George Catholic College for their ideas of creating active travel ‘bingo’ cards to motivate students to be more active throughout the day, using journey tracking apps to run an inter class active travel competition, and holding a teacher versus teacher ‘Olympics’ to raise funds for more prizes for active travel competitions.

Councillor Eamonn Keogh, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, said: “I was delighted to be able to take part in this fantastic event and it is so encouraging to see our city’s students talk so confidently and passionately about active travel, road safety and air quality. The students have clearly worked hard to identify the travel issues local to their school and develop targeted campaigns to resolve these issues. With the funding provided by Modeshift, the students have a fantastic opportunity to be the voice of change within their schools and I look forward to seeing the delivery and impact of their campaigns”.

Ross Butcher, the Chair of Modeshift said: “The Modeshift Active Travel Ambassadors programme empowers secondary school pupils by giving them the skills and confidence to tackle travel issues in their school. They are working incredibly hard to promote the benefits of walking, cycling and wheeling, acting as active travel role models to their friends and peers and leaving a legacy in their school community.”

Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council both offer schools free travel planning support to identify barriers to active travel and road safety issues, and then jointly work with schools to resolve these issues through a range of behaviour change initiatives, campaigns and activities.

PIC-SOUTHAMPTON CC