What are minor measures? Best practice examples

Minor walking measures can be defined as smaller capital infrastructure improvements such as drop kerbs and tactiles, footway patching, footway extensions or widening, and crossings. Crossings could include signalised crossings with traffic lights, non-signalised crossings such as zebra crossings, crossing islands and continuous footways at side junctions or vehicle entrances.

Through the audit process, community participants identified a package of minor walking infrastructure measures to improve walking along the audit route. The measures identified tended to be a diverse range of relatively small and sundry interventions such as footway repairs, adding or rebuilding drop kerbs and tactiles, decluttering the footway from redundant bollards and signposts, as well as management and enforcement issues such as parking control and reducing the number of A-boards on the footway, and reducing dog fouling. Although these are small changes, to use the words of one evaluation interview participant: “Small schemes make a big difference.” Viewed from the perspective of a mobility scooter or a wheelchair user, or of someone trying to push their pram or shopping trolley across the road, these minor footway improvements do not just shape their experience but determine whether they can make the journey in the first place.

Four local authorities involved in this evaluation delivered on the minor walking infrastructure measures which community participants had identified through the audits. The following are examples of best practice from these local authorities: