Why are most of us in Shropshire struggling to get walking?

According to the department for transport, four out of 10 people in the Telford & Wrekin council area do not manage to walk for 10 minutes consecutively a week. In Shropshire, nearly a third of people fail to meet the mark.

Figures from Sport England's Active Live survey show that Telford & Wrekin has one of the lowest rates of weekly walking in the country.

Public Health England encourages adults to walk for at least 10 minutes a day, but 40 per cent of people in the area do not manage it in a week, nine per cent higher than the national average of 31 per cent.

Shropshire has a weekly 10-minute walking rate of 30 per cent, in line with the national average.

The annual Active Live survey, which ran from November 2016 to November 2017, asked a random sample of 600 adults over the age of 16 in Telford & Wrekin, and 1,153 adults in Shropshire how active they had been in the past four weeks.

Sport England, which conducted the survey, aims to help get everyone in England to feel able to engage in sport and physical activity.

They focus their work on programmes that help people who do very little or no physical activity and groups who are typically less active.

In June, Public Health England and the Royal College of GPs also launched a campaign to promote the health benefits of taking a brisk 10-minute walk every day.

Mike Brannan, Public Health England's physical activity leader, said: "While we're starting to see more people being active, getting the nation moving presents a significant challenge and won't be solved overnight."

Diabetes

Dr Brannan said that being physically active reduces the risk of serious illnesses such as heart disease and type two diabetes.

He added: "For most people, walking or cycling is the easiest way to be active – even a 10-minute walk every day can make a real difference to your health."

The survey showed that people in both areas were more likely to walk as a leisure activity than for travel.

In Telford & Wrekin, 46 per cent of people said they took a recreational stroll at least once a week, along with 57 per cent in Shropshire, compared with 29 percent from both areas using walking as a mode of transport.

The highest rate of weekly walking was found in Richmond and Wandsworth, where 83 per cent of respondents took a 10-minute walk at least once a week.

In 2017 the department for transport announced it would be investing £1.2 billion of funding into helping more people to walk and cycle.

It is investing an extra £620,000 on outreach programmes to encourage children to walk to school.

Jesse Norman, transport minister, said: "Cycling and walking provide enormous benefits to both public health and the environment, and it's good to see evidence that people are opting for a more active lifestyle.

"But it is also clear that as a cycling and walking nation the UK has a long way to go to match the best international models."