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Health issues must inform transport choices

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Health issues should be a central factor in decisions on where to spend the limited money available for transport schemes in Wales, so says the Welsh unit of sustainable transport charity Sustrans.

The plea from Sustrans Cymru comes as the Welsh Assembly Government conducts a review of how competing transport schemes should be appraised and what measures should be used to determine which ones would prove beneficial for its citizens.

Sustrans Cymru argues in its report, Changing the Ground Rules, that the health impacts, positive and negative, of every Welsh transport scheme should influence funding decisions.

Sustrans Cymru director Lee Waters, speaking to Wales Online, said health problems, including rising obesity and heart disease, played no part in the current appraisal system.

The costs of health issues such as obesity to Wales’ health system could be negated in the future if funding is given to cycling or walking schemes that promote physical exercise over say something like the small time saving per trip trumpeted by a new transport scheme.

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