Calls for a default 20mph speed limit in residential areas have received the backing of public health experts.
Dr Mike Knapton, associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, has urged ministers to take action to make neighbourhoods safer and encourage children to be active by walking and cycling to school.
'Parents want to see safer streets – the Government must change the standard speed limit to 20mph on the streets where we live, work and play,' he said.
New research published by Sustrans found the majority (56%) of parents in the UK believe kids would be more physically active if speed limits were lowered.
A separate poll published by the pedestrian charity, Living Streets, found more than a third of adults would also walk if they felt their streets were safer and more attractive.
The Government's public health tsar, Duncan Selbie, who is chief executive designate of Public Health England, recently used 20mph zones as an example of how public health chiefs can provide 'visible, accessible and practical' evidence to influence councillors’ decisions to benefit of communities.
