West Devon Borough Council has received £200,000 to fund an Active Travel project targeted at improving cycling and walking routes throughout West Devon and the South Hams.

The aim is to encourage people to ditch their cars in favour of walking and cycling for shorter journeys.

The project has been outsourced to urban design consultants Phil Jones Associates, whose document entitled Establishing Ambition: Strategic Active Travel was presented to councillors in an online meeting this month.

A survey, soon to be made available, will gather data from residents on what they would like to see. It runs until October with results being presented at full council in January 2024.

Isabel Saxby, Bere Ferrers ward borough councillor, said: ‘In this meeting, we were presented with figures relevant to West Devon which stated that 80% of residents are likely to walk to a destination if it is within one mile, but over 70% will drive if it is up to five miles away.

‘Our area is largely rural and many councillors are in support of this. Ultimately the funding isn’t huge so the council will target areas such as in and around Tavistock and Okehampton where it will have the most impact and help a greater number of people in the most cost-effective way.

‘We would love long cycle routes connecting West Devon but it looks like smaller projects will be targeted and over the course of ten years we can have well-connected cycle paths.’

The borough of West Devon already contains a patchwork network of walking and cycling routes, many of which are on disused railway lines, such as the Granite Way, Drake’s Trail — both of which comprise parts of the National Cycle Route 27 — and the route between Yelverton and Princetown.