Walking and cycling routes across the city are to be improved and expanded by Newport City Council.

The improvements to the network will give residents more choice of routes and the chance to be active.

The projects can go ahead thanks to grants of £687,000 from the Welsh Government to improve the Active Travel Network across the city. The funds come from the Local Transport Fund, Local Transport Network Fund, Safe Routes in Communities and Road Safety funding for 2018/19.

This will involve the council working with organisations such as Newport Live and Sustrans to improve road safety and developing new safer routes and walks to school with the community.

The work will include improving air quality through pioneering emission reduction schemes will be undertaken by Streetscene staff working with officers in environmental health.

The council’s cabinet member for Streetscene Councillor Roger Jeavons said he was very pleased to see the support from Welsh Government enabling these projects to go ahead.

“The council is committed to helping our residents enjoy walking or cycling around the city on safe routes which are dedicated paths for these healthy activities.

“Encouraging youngsters to walk to school is also another way of helping to reduce carbon emissions so less traffic builds up around school buildings,” said Cllr Jeavons.

The council is complying with the Active Travel (Wales) Act 2013 which aims to make walking and cycling the most attractive option for shorter ‘active travel’ journeys.

The council has already consulted and collected information to produce Existing Route Maps (ERM) which can be downloaded from the website – http://www.newport.gov.uk/en/Transport-Streets/Active-travel.aspx