I love Congleton, it has grown on me over the years, more importantly than that, I Iove the people of Congleton for electing me, first to the town council and now to the borough council.

The opportunities this role affords allows me to continue to work hard for our residents, in addition to supporting residents with issues and concerns they have and trying to fix them, it is about making Congleton a much nicer place to live.

There is no doubt that increasing the number of people walking or cycling especially for short journeys (under 2 miles for cycling and 1 mile for walking), into our town centres takes vehicles off our roads.

Drivers regularly drive too fast, which makes them a danger to all pedestrians, cyclists, wheelchair and mobility scooter users and by reducing the number of vehicles on the roads makes our environment a safer place to walk and cycle and frees up road space for those people that can't.

The government want people to walk and cycle more and recently announced billions of pounds investment to help towns achieve this.

In addition, being active everyday will increase our quality of life by making us fitter, walking and cycling is an easy way to incorporate activity into our daily schedules.

The aim of making Congleton both pedestrian and cycle friendly will make our town an even nicer place to live.

But don't take my word for it. Look at Waltham Forest where walking and cycling are one and the same, they both live happily side by side with a share with care philosophy.

This philosophy is adopted all over Europe where a lot more people walk and cycle than they do here.

I am not saying don't drive, I am not saying everyone has to walk and cycle, my campaign is about providing a choice that enables people to both walk and cycle.

If your child could cycle to their after-school activity, that would mean one less car journey, if we used our bikes to nip to the shops to get milk, another car journey not taken, if 100 people did that every day, that equates to the equivalent of two car parks in Congleton.

Using our cars less is a good thing for Congleton and in light of the fact that Congleton Town Council committed to fight climate change, reducing vehicle journeys is the most significant way we can achieve this ambition.

The philosophy of sharing space between pedestrians and cyclists is incredibly important, not only because by not doing so we discriminate against people, we all know that disabilities are not always visible and for many people cycling is a way that allows them to get about easier without having to use a car.

There is also the fact that not everyone has a vehicle, or wants one, they can be expensive to run and the emissions that they spurt out are damaging our health, the air that we breathe and our planet.

Change is never easy, in fact it can be uncomfortable but if we are to leave a planet that has any resource, we need to change our way of life and think about and change how we do things.

If you would like safer streets please contact your town councillors and ask them to support the temporary widening of pavements, create temporary cycle lanes and introduce a 20mph under Covid-19 emergency measures.

These measures are there to enable people to socially distance and an opportunity to try measures that will make our town nicer by restricting traffic and prioritising pedestrians and cyclists.

If the temporary changes do not work, they can revert back. If anyone reading this has enjoyed walking more or being out on their bike with friends or family and have enjoyed breathing in fresh air, I urge you to help your councillors make the right choice to support social distancing measures post lockdown.

Contact [email protected] to make your views known.