Wokingham Borough Connect
 Swap car miles for active smiles to win prizes
You could win prizes like a train trip to Europe and free gym memberships if you try sustainable alternatives to driving on World Car Free Day tomorrow (Friday 22 September).
The borough-wide Love to Ride cycling challenge and the BetterPoints smartphone app, which automatically logs all green travel including walking, cycling, bus and train, are both offering incentives to leave the car at home.
On top of its month-long Cycle September challenge, Love to Ride has some special World Car Free Day prizes including memberships to the Move HQ gym at Winnersh. A £4,000 holiday is up for grabs too throughout Cycle September.
Meanwhile BetterPoints is offering a £100 prize draw, free coffee vouchers and the top prize of £800 towards a trip on Eurostar including accommodation and spending money.
Our My Journey Wokingham active travel team hope you’ll see how much time and money you can save by walking, cycling or taking public transport instead. This will help reduce our borough’s carbon emissions and improve its air quality.
 Rail bosses urged to rethink ticket office closures
We’ve raised concerns over plans to close railway station ticket offices and reduce staffing hours in Wokingham Borough.
We’ve warned the Rail Delivery Group, which represents Britain’s train operators, that this could cause problems – especially for groups like older people and those with disabilities or mobility issues.
The group says fewer people use ticket offices because of smartphone apps and contactless payments, so it would be better for staff to help in other places like on the platform.
But after listening to people’s views, we say this could leave some at an unfair disadvantage and goes against our goal of promoting public transport to improve air quality and reduce carbon emissions.
Our concerns include an increased risk of crime, difficulty using ticket machines, limited availability of certain ticket types, barriers for those using cash, accessibility issues and more.
 New maps show faster active journeys
The start of a new school year is the perfect time to switch up your habits. As part of our Active Swaps campaign, we've launched four speed route maps to help you get around the borough using active travel.
Swapping the car for an active journey can help you raise your activity levels, save money on fuel and reduce air pollution. It can even be quicker than driving at peak times, as our maps demonstrate!
Visit our website to view our maps for Arborfield, Shinfield, Wokingham North, and Wokingham South - and stay tuned for more to come!
 Living roof bike shelters take root in schools
As part of our work to improve air quality around schools, which is funded by DEFRA, we’ve installed six new green roofed bike shelters at:
- The Forest School, Winnersh
- The Piggott Senior School, Twyford
- St Crispin's School, Wokingham
- The Emmbrook School, Wokingham
- The Holt School, Wokingham
- St Paul's C of E Junior School, Wokingham.
The shelters are covered with a tough, low maintenance, succulent plant that absorbs rainwater and soaks up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, increasing their benefits to the environment.
By reducing the number of car journeys to and from all our schools, we can improve air quality and reduce traffic congestion at pick-up and drop-off times. This has huge health benefits for pupils – as does the added exercise!
Road safety show drives home the dangers
New students at ten secondary schools in the borough learned how to keep safe on the streets by watching a live road safety show organised by the My Journey team.
The “Streetwise” shows by Performance in Education, held between 11 and 15 September, used hard-hitting drama and multimedia to give Year 7 pupils a sobering look at the dangers that pedestrians face.
It highlighted the risk of distractions like using phones, listening to music, messing around or travelling on “automatic pilot” and encouraged the students to change how they think and behave – especially on familiar routes.
The young audiences paid close attention and asked lots of questions afterwards, showing they’d given it some serious thought.
 Prizes on offer for greener schools
We’re hosting a borough-wide challenge on the free BetterPoints smartphone app which records all your active trips automatically and gives you points that can be cashed in for prizes.
By giving this a go during Cycle to School Week, which runs from next Monday (25 September) to Friday, you can earn a daily bonus of 100 BetterPoints on top of the regular allocation.
This is a great way to celebrate the huge benefits of active school runs including better health and air quality and lower carbon emissions. To earn your reward, simply record a cycle or scoot to or from school.
Make a pledge to win a bike!
As well as the BetterPoints bonus, The Bikeability Trust are asking parents and pupils to make a cycling pledge. By making a pledge you will be entered into their prize draw for your chance to win a Frog children’s bike worth £535!
Three more schools get more active
Three more Wokingham schools have been accredited or achieved a higher level on the national Modeshift STARS active travel scheme.
St Teresa's Primary School and Emmbrook Junior School, both in Wokingham, earned their bronze level accreditations, while The Colleton Primary School, Twyford earned green level accreditation.
To earn their accreditation, these schools had to either plan (green) or complete (bronze) at least ten initiatives to encourage active travel. They also undertook a travel survey and set targets.
Prizes for summer trail winners
The My Journey team recently ran a summer trail competition asking children to spot certain landmarks while out walking, cycling or scooting in our country parks and green spaces.
Charlie from St Teresa's Primary School in Wokingham was chosen as the winner and won a family ticket to a home match at Reading Football Club.
Max from Hillside Primary School, Lower Earley and Henry from South Lake Primary School, Woodley were chosen as runners-up. They have each won a family swim voucher for the Carnival Leisure Hub in Wokingham.
 A friendly face in your community
We’re pleased to have attended several community events this summer including the recent Mindset festival on Elms Field in Wokingham town, which focused on many different aspects of health and wellbeing.
The My Journey team were there to show how walking, cycling and other forms of active travel are an important part of a balanced, healthy lifestyle.
They also talked to hundreds of students at the University of Reading’s recent sustainability fair and gave out local maps, lots of high vis and reflective bag covers, snap bands and emergency bike lights.
 Regular training and activities
- FREE Balance Bike Club at FBC (Wednesdays) which is sponsored by Complete Childcare
- FREE Balance Bike Club at Woodford Park Leisure Centre (Thursdays)
- Learn to Ride sessions (£6) at FBC in Finchampstead (Wednesdays)
- Learn to Ride sessions (£6) at Woodford Park Leisure Centre in Woodley (Thursdays)
- Woky Wheels 4 All at FBC in Finchampstead (Thursday mornings)
- Adult Cycle Training Beginners/Improvers (£10) at Woodford Park Leisure Centre, Woodley (Saturday mornings)
- Twyford Together Fun Run at The Piggott School, Twyford (My Journey and Dr Bike will be there)
- Family cycle trail from FBC, Finchampstead to Arborfield Green (entries to be submitted by 31 October) - prize draw to be won
- The Wokingham Walk - Sunday, 15 October (charity walk starting at Elms Field, Wokingham. More details can be found on their website.
For more information on our regular cycle training and activities, visit our website.
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