Written question WQ98301

The Welsh Government remains firmly committed to ensuring that the safety and accessibility of disabled pedestrians is treated as a top priority, and that walking, wheeling and cycling are genuinely inclusive and accessible for everyone. In April 2025 we committed to ensuring that access and inclusion are at the heart of everything we do to make everyone feel safe and welcomed when travelling in Wales.

Our existing Active Travel Act Guidance makes clear that walking, cycling and public transport offer significant benefits to all, and that this potential will only be realised if the needs of people with protected characteristics, particularly disabled people, are properly considered at all stages of creating the network. The guidance also emphasises, within the section on the Equality Act 2010, the importance of ensuring that disabled people and their representative organisations are fully and meaningfully involved throughout engagement and consultation processes.

Inclusive engagement is essential for effective collaboration and meaningful engagement with groups and individuals representing people with protected characteristics. In support of this commitment, the Welsh Government convenes the Advisory Group for Inclusive Active Travel, which brings together a wide range of stakeholders, disability focused charities and Transport for Wales on a quarterly basis. This ensures that the experiences and concerns of disabled people are heard and that inclusivity and accessibility remain central to active travel policy. This will be further bolstered by the establishment of the Disabled People’s Travel Panel, evolving the excellent work of the Transport for Wales Access and Inclusion Panel to a widened remit across all transport modes, including active travel, to use member’s lived experience to provide advice and assurance to Welsh Government, Transport for Wales and Local Authorities on accessibility and inclusivity for disabled people across Transport in Wales.

The existing Active Travel Act Guidance also already sets out the responsibilities of public sector authorities under the Equality Act 2010, including the duty to make reasonable adjustments to the built environment so that new infrastructure is accessible to all. The safety of all active travel users is at the core of the guidance; this is reflected in clear width requirements for routes, criteria for the suitability of different types of infrastructure and the importance of appropriate surface materials, including tactile paving and the need for strong visual contrast to delineate pedestrian-only areas.

We are currently working with TfW and partners to review and strengthen our Active Travel Act Guidance even further, with a particular focus on inclusive planning and design. We consulted on draft revised guidance over the last four months.

As part of the consultation, we were particularly interested to hear the views of disabled people, women and young people to make sure that we are addressing the most important issues with this update. To achieve this, we have engaged extensively on the new guidance. We placed a particular focus on ensuring effective engagement with disabled people and their representatives, drawing on input and expertise of both the TfW Access and Inclusion Panel and the inclusive group of the Active Travel Board.

Together with the online consultation responses, the valuable feedback gathered in these events and meetings will inform the final guidance.