Our congratulations go to Sam Margolis, Tower Hamlets Council, who won the award for his excellent paper on Tower Hamlets Active Travel: Promoting a 'Healthy Town' Through Walking and Cycling.

The award was presented to Sam at the Transport Practitioners Meeting in Reading on 15 July 2009.

This award is sponsored by TPS and is given annually to the Best Paper by a Young Professional, as judged by a panel of TPS Board Members.

Paper Summary:  The Tower Hamlets Active Travel elements of the Healthy Borough programme are dedicated to boosting physical activity amongst the Borough's residents through encouraging more walking and cycling, and so helping combat obesity. 

Initiatives implemented so far have already shown exciting increases in active travel participation, with accompanying health benefits.  The remaining 18 months of the programme will build on and extend this work. 

Several factors contribute to the success of the programme, including focused community engagement to embed schemes beyond the lifetime of initial funding, strengthened partnership working between the PCT and Local Authority, and by targeting under-represented groups in active travel in the Borough.