Cycling increased in Horsham during the pandemic but the number of walkers fell, research shows

More adults in Horsham took to their bikes during the pandemic, new figures from the Department for Transport have shown.
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The opposite happened with walking - with fewer adults walking at least once a week. This was driven by a big fall in the number of people walking to travel, for example, to work.

The figures released yesterday (Wednesday) compared data from November 2019-2020 with that taken in November 2018-19.

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They show that 12.2 per cent of those surveyed cycled at least once a week in 2019/20, up from just nine per cent the previous year.

More people took to their bikes during the pandemicMore people took to their bikes during the pandemic
More people took to their bikes during the pandemic

Of those, 10.8 per cent cycled for leisure (up from 8.2 per cent) and 2.4 per cent to travel (down from 3.2 per cent in 2018/19).

Horsham district was ranked 138th in England out of more than 300 local authority areas listed.

Crawley was ranked 103rd with slightly higher cycle usage than Horsham overall, but in Mid Sussex the percentage of people using their bikes fell and that area was ranked 261.

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Although walking fell slightly during the pandemic, the percentages are much higher.

In Horsham 73.4 per cent of people said they walked at least once a week in November 2019/20, down from 75.4 per cent the year before.

Of those 65.6 per cent walked for leisure, an increase in the number for 2018/19 which was given as 59.9 per cent.

The percentage of people who walked to travel dropped significantly from 41.1 per cent in 2018/19 to just 25.4 per cent in 2019/20, reflecting the lockdown period when many workers were furloughed or switched to working from home.

Horsham was ranked 63rd in England for the percentage of people who walked at least once a week.

Mid Sussex was ranked 168th and Crawley 176th.