Walk Ride Greater Manchester believes everyone in our city-region should have the freedom to travel actively on streets designed for people.
For the 2026 local elections, we are inviting candidates to commit to five pledges to help make this a reality:
- Pavement parking action
Selfish and antisocial parking has long been a blight on our neighbourhoods, reducing the amenity value of walking, often obstructing users such as people pushing buggies or using wheelchairs, and limiting pedestrians to single-file and disrupting enjoyment of our public spaces.
Given the recent Government announcement for secondary and then primary legislation on antisocial parking in due course, we would like authorities across GM to pursue a public information campaign in order to initiate behaviour-change to help create smoother conditions for a transition to a London-style system. Naturally, Walk Ride would be happy to help promote and assist with such a campaign; however, we believe that it would be the most impactful if messaging comes from the Councils themselves, so we are asking for your leadership on this key issue.
- School Streets at more locations
We echo Mums for Lungs in welcoming progress so far on this Mayoral commitment, but now ask for a commitment to delivering School Streets for 25% of schools by 2029, with a clear milestone for 2026 to keep progress on track. Once established, a School Street must not depend on the goodwill of volunteers for enforcement.
Significant headway has been made but this needs to continue so that all Greater Manchester children benefit.
- Speed up Streets for All rollout
All 10 Greater Manchester boroughs signed up to deliver healthier places across the region by adopting the Streets for All Design Guide in 2024. The draft National Planning Policy Framework (December 2025) is also clear that this must include infrastructure that genuinely enables people to travel actively – namely continuous footways and protected cycleways.
We ask that you ensure schemes designed to modern standards are stepped up in pace now that there is strong direction from the national and regional levels.
- Take strong action to meet Vision Zero pledge
In 2023, Greater Manchester committed to a Vision Zero approach: a strategy to eliminate road death and serious injury by 2040 by taking a more systematic approach to tackling road danger.
The tragic death of Michael Mullins, the Stretford Grammar School headmaster, in April is 6 years after Robert Eaves was killed in a collision while cycling at exactly the same location. In the meantime, hundreds of people have died while walking, wheeling or cycling on roads in Greater Manchester.
If someone is killed in a workplace, it shuts down, investigates and takes steps to make sure it can’t happen again. But when it comes to our public roads, the police take some photos, clean up the scene and reopen the road as soon as possible. This double-standard is absolutely unacceptable.
Any number of road deaths above zero is a scandal when we have the means available to prevent them. So will you pledge to push for Vision Zero through all means available to you?
- Wider rollout of 20mph
At traffic speeds of 30-40mph, the risk of pedestrian death as a result of a collision with a vehicle is 5.5 times more likely than at speeds between 20-30mph.
Since the implementation in Wales, there were 900 fewer injuries and 14 fewer deaths in the first year. The lower speeds have reduced collision risks, with studies suggesting that the reduction in casualties could provide around £92 million in safety savings. Lower speeds also encourage people to walk and cycle more for their short journeys, improving air quality in the long term.
Furthermore, research shows that 20mph zones have an added benefit of reducing the volume of traffic at peak travel times, and drivers have been able to benefit from lower insurance premiums.
Will you advocate for more 20mph speed limits in your area?
We look forward to working towards the above goals with any council representatives after 7 May.