Category: Engage • Inspire • Learn

A concrete and well-designed Behaviour Change plan can play a crucial role in determining the overall success of an active travel infrastructure project.

This can affect everything from the level of early engagement you are able to develop within a community, to the way a project is received in terms of infrastructure usage once construction is complete.

The resources below outline the key elements of developing your own Behaviour Change Plan and should serve as a guide to take your project forward.

In the recording below, we hear from Anna Gale from Public Health Scotland, who give an overview of the findings and recommendations from the Health Impact Assessment.

Find out more about the Health Impact Assessment and Rapid Evidence Review here: https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/road-space-reallocation-in-scotland/

Evidence suggests that the most efficient mechanism for boosting active travel is a mix of interventions that complement each other (e.g. infrastructure interventions and behavioural interventions like a route planning training).

In Places for Everyone we therefore ask applicants to design a mix of behavioural interventions alongside their infrastructure projects, and present these in a behaviour change plan.

Intentionally developing and implementing a plan of activities will increase the use of new infrastructure at the outset and ultimately increase the impact it has.

Start by considering your local context (the local people and organisations), engage and listen. Design a plan just as you would design infrastructure; in a context specific way and in response to feedback. This may it take more time but is well worth it and important.

Introduction

This page offers materials and bite-sized, interactive tutorials on understanding and delivering community engagement and behaviour change in Places for Everyone projects.

This includes a practical guide to behaviour change strategies and interventions, as well as a community engagement guide, and the types of community sector organisations. Please note that you can find the references and relevant resources at the bottom of this page.

This page is a work in progress an will be updated with new materials frequently. Your feedback will help shape future sessions and materials.

Developing a Behaviour Change Plan

In this session, we cover:

• Why behaviour change plans are important;
• What behaviour change plans should include;
• Community engagement vs behaviour change;
• Involving seldom-heard groups;
• Selecting interventions; and
• Key points to remember.

Putting Theory into Practice

The session above, “Developing a Behaviour Change Plan”, mentions that one of the most effective mechanisms for boosting active travel is a mix of measures that complement each other. Infrastructure is just one measure we can use. In this session, we take a practical look at how to put together an effective programme that will result in a greater diversity of people using the infrastructure.

Introduction to Behaviour Change

In this session, we cover:

• What is behaviour change?
• ISM and Shifting Normal models
• COM-B and the Behaviour Change Wheel
• Tying it all together using a real life example
• Making things happen

Introduction to Community Sector Organisations

In this session we’re going to look at community organisations in a bit more depth. We cover:

• Explanation of the terms Community Sector, Third sector and Voluntary sector
• Types of community organisation
• Legal structures
• Social enterprises and BIDs

Community Engagement and Co-production

Our Community Engagement Guide 2022 provides an overview of best practice in community engagement and allows you to easily identify which deliverables and activities are appropriate at each stage in the process. This guide covers:

• An overview of community engagement standards that underpin effective and purposeful engagement
• Community Engagement activity by project stage

Stakeholder Register and Mapping Template

This template offers:

• A stakeholder register for easy recording and categorising of stakeholders
• A stakeholder map for visual representation of the stakeholders involved in your Places for Everyone project
• A list of generic stakeholder groups that you may consider for your stakeholder register/ map

References and relevant resources

• ISM User Guide
• Shifting Normal Guide
• Behaviour Change Wheel
• Intervention Information Sheets
• Components of a Behaviour Change Plan
• Exemplary Behaviour Change plans (coming soon)
• Intervention examples spreadsheed (coming soon)

I think that I shall never see,
A poem lovely as a tree.

Joyce Kilmer 1888-1918

Places for Everyone encourages the creation of green space as part of walking, wheeling and cycling projects. This article looks at the benefits of including plants and trees in your infrastructure project and how Places for Everyone can supporting greening.

Why Plants?

Wellbeing

For most people, the ability of plants to lift the senses is something to which they can personally testify; but there is also a growing body of scientific evidence that demonstrates how much planting can benefit the health of both individuals and communities. Attractive places bring people together and increase social contact between neighbours, and are also safer spaces.

The Journal of Environmental Horticulture has summarised recent academic literature on the social benefits of planting.

Biodiversity

Varied planting can make an important contribution to bio-diversity, generating an ecosystem that includes insects, birds and small mammals. Often this means employing a different sort of maintenance regime from approaches many authorities have got used to, but this may not involve more work. Continuous green corridors can prove especially attractive to wildlife, as well as to human users.

Sustainable drainage

The increasing frequency of flash storms and our large acreage of hard landscaping make flooding a growing risk. Planting can be used to trap water and allow it to infiltrate slowly into the ground, so that very little has to be carried away by the drainage system. Inclusion of a gravel layer below the topsoil can increase the amount of water such a system can cope with, and also filter out obstructions that might block pipes. Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) can take the form of planting areas into which run-off can flow (rather than raised beds), or shallow depressions, or swales, which can also be made more attractive and effective with suitable planting.

Urban Design London have published technical guidance on the creation of rain gardens.

Summer Cooling

While urban heat islands, and excess heat generally, are less of a problem in Scotland than many places, most people appreciate a shady tree on a hot day, and the need for some further cooling is likely to increase. Plants also cool the air when they use heat energy to evaporate water from their leaves; and they lose heat much more quickly than solid earth or masonry, so that an area shaded by plants will cool much more quickly at night.

The Forestry Commission issued a report in 2019 on the role of trees and greenspaces in reducing urban air temperatures.

Examples in our projects

Gynack Gardens

The Gynack Gardens project in Kingussie is testament to how accessible green placemaking initiatives can be a valuable tool for improving wellbeing and fostering social connections within communities.

Serving as both a direct link to the local school and train station, as well as an attractive events space for arts productions and farmers markets, this polished green space is a popular destination for town residents residents, as well as visitors travelling along the National Cycle Network Route 7 and Speyside Way.

Construction on the gardens was completed in Spring 2021. Sustrans worked closely with project lead Kingussie Community Development Trust, consultants TGP and McGowan Environmental Engineering to deliver a vision of meandering paths and wooden benches enclosing a main stone plaza.

The community completed the works with sheltered bicycle parking and a DIY repair station.

Canal and Claypits

Just a mile north of Glasgow city centre, the Hamiltonhill Claypits is a restored area of natural greenspace which forms part of a key walking, wheeling and cycling route for those in the north of the city.

The site is also Glasgow’s only designated inner-city Local Nature Reserve, managed by volunteers of the Claypits Management Group on behalf of Scottish Canals.

The vision behind the project, delivered by Sustrans in partnership with Scottish Canals and Glasgow City Council, was to connect the residents of Panmure Gate and Woodside via a new active travel bridge.

Currently, the communities are split from one another by the Forth and Clyde Canal.

It was also important that the project cultivate and preserve existing habitats in the area, which would jointly serve as a place for locals to relax, exercise and re-connect with nature.

Working with local communities, a scenic network of pathways and newly installed boardwalks were introduced, allowing wildlif to be more accessible. In addition, community planting of trees and shrubs was introduced to more effectively manage the site ecology.

To the immediate south and west, a state of the art electronic footbridge was built by McKenzie Construction. The Garscube Bridge, which serves as a gateway to the Claypits, spans the Forth and Clyde Canal, and allows the safe intermittent passage of boats, cyclists, and pedestrians.