Active travel in action in Southampton

Last Friday (17 October 2025), over 250 family members, pupils and teachers at Hightown Primary School took part in a giant, fancy dress conga line around Hightown Primary School to promote healthier and more active journeys to school for ‘Walktober’

The event was part of our Walktober campaign, a joint active travel initiative run by Southampton City Council and Hampshire County Council and held each October to celebrate International Walk to School Month.

The campaign has been running in Southampton since 2016 with over 30 schools and 12,000 pupils regularly taking part. School communities are asked to walk, wheel and use other active and sustainable travel as much as possible throughout the month.

The month-long campaign aims to encourage and motivate more pupils and their families to walk to school more often and share their active and sustainable travel stories to help inspire others to travel differently. Pupils who participated in the conga line were also rewarded with a free breakfast.

The Walktober campaign helps support school travel planning measures that aim to encourage and enable more active journeys, reduce congestion around the school gate, improve air quality and address road safety issues.

James Williamson, Headteacher at Hightown Primary School, came up with the idea and said:

“It was great that so many children and parents joined us for our record setting conga line. It was a great event to help raise awareness for all the benefits of walking to school and substituting car journeys with walking when possible.”

Councillor Christie Lambert, Cabinet Member for Transport at Southampton City Council, said:

“I am thrilled that so many members of the Hightown Primary School community came out to celebrate Walktober. We are committed to working with schools to encourage and enable more families to reap the benefits of active travel which is great for children’s health and wellbeing and the more people taking part, the greater the benefits to air quality and the environment.”