Worcestershire County Council - Making it easier to walk and cycle through the joint local health and wellbeing strategy

• Location: Worcestershire

• Purpose: Surveys found that 64.2% of adults in Worcestershire are either overweight or obese and that the rate of depression in the county was 12.3% higher than the national average. Keen to ensure that residents could live healthier and happier lives, the county council devised a joined up strategy to bring together the various health and well-being organisations in Worcestershire to align their aims over the next ten years. The strategy includes an emphasis on how the council can make it easier and safer for more residents to walk and cycle to commute and for enjoyment.

• Description: The strategy looks at how to reduce health inequalities and prevention and early interventions. A key cornerstone of this strategy was how the council could protect the environment by ensuring that residents breathe clean air, live active lifestyles, and have good access to green spaces. The strategy stresses the importance of living an active lifestyle and how the provision of walking and cycling infrastructure around communities can encourage more residents to move more — and the benefits that have been shown to have on our physical and mental health.

• Conservative councillor/ council lead: Councillor Karen May, Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Health and Wellbeing

• Further links:  Worcestershire’s Joint Local Health and Wellbeing Strategy for 2022-2032