A group of young Birmingham children are helping to launch a new green travel campaign as part of international Walk to School Week.

Events at the Colebourne Primary School coincide with the TravelWise campaign ‘Wedded to the Car?’ aimed at getting motorists to think about using alternative ways to travel.  The campaign is due to launch on the back of 140 buses across the West Midlands from this week.

Recent figures show the number of parents driving their children to school has more than doubled in the past twenty years.

“Not only is this encouraging dependence on the car at an early age, it also adding to congestion as around one in ten cars on the road each morning are on the school run,” comments Centro TravelWise officer, Rachel Hooper.

West Midlands public transport promoter Centro is supporting the TravelWise campaign and the school’s environment week, to get more children walking, cycling or catching the bus to school.

Four, five and six year old pupils at Colebourne Primary School will role play getting on and off a bus as part of the school’s week of environmental activities.

“This will be a fun event for the children as part of our environment week but it also carries a serious message,” says Colebourne Primary School’s deputy head Stuart Guest.

“It is becoming increasingly important that we enable our children to become aware of environmental issues in our local community, but also in a wider sense as global citizens,” he says.