From Easter until the end of the summer holidays, the Centrebus ZOO bus service will operate during weekends and school holidays. The service will run every 90 minutes from Luton Parkway, through Dunstable and into Whipsnade Zoo.

To make your trip to the Zoo even better, they are offering a 50% admission ticket discount if you’ve travelled by bus.

The Big Walk and Wheel will be running from Monday 11 March to Friday 22 March and all schools are invited to take part.

Pupils, teachers, and parents across Central Bedfordshire will be encouraged to walk, wheel, or jump on their bikes and scooters for the 2024 challenge.

Now in its fifteenth year, Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel inspires pupils to make active journeys to school, improve air quality where they live, and help them to discover how these changes benefit their world.

The challenge is free to take part and there are daily prizes to be won. The idea is to persuade pupils, teachers, and parents to leave their cars at home and choose active travel for their school journey.

Register at Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel 2024

A school street is a timed road closure outside or next to a school at drop-off and pick-up times. The school street is closed to most vehicles, with exemptions made for residents and people with accessibility needs.

Many schools experience heavy congestion outside their gates during pick-up and drop-off times. Unfortunately, this can increase road danger for children and worsen air pollution outside the school gates. School streets have been created in many parts of the UK to tackle this problem. There are now over 600 school streets nationally.

Key reasons for school streets:

• Safer environment: School streets significantly reduce traffic congestion and improve the air quality around school premises, providing a safer environment for pupils and parents during peak drop-off and pick-up hours.

• Pedestrian Priority: School streets allow pupils to cross the road more safely, reducing the risk of accidents and ensuring a smoother flow of foot traffic around the school.

• Active travel: School streets encourage children to walk, scoot and cycle to school.

  We evaluate the eligibility of schools for a school street on a case-by-case basis. A school street is usually trialled for a few months, after which we consider whether to make the school street permanent.

Would you like your children to play out safely in your street? We want to work with you to set up play streets in your area.

A play street is a free scheme whereby residents come together to give children a chance to play freely and safely close to their homes. It is led by residents but supported by us. 

Play streets:

• take place for an hour or 2 at a time

• happen once a month or every other week

• happen on quiet residential streets

• are closed to through traffic, but residents can still drive in and out at walking speed (supervised by volunteers)

Parents are responsible for their own children.

The street becomes a safe space for children to play and neighbours to socialise.

The process usually involves a lead organiser getting together a handful of residents to act as stewards. If you are a parent, carer or resident who is interested, please contact us at: begreen@centralbedfordshire.gov.uk.

We will work with you to check if your street is suitable, talk through questions and concerns and walk you through next steps.

Questions and answers

Central Bedfordshire lower and primary schools are once again taking part in a Christmas challenge; counting their walking, scooting and cycling trips to school to see if they can travel virtually to visit Santa in Lapland.

This year’s challenge runs from Monday 27 November to Friday 8 December.

The aim is to decrease the number of cars used on the school run and give pupils the opportunity to learn about the many benefits of traveling actively to school alongside the importance of staying safe.

Using a class record sheet, pupils and their teachers will monitor active travel trips to school. All journeys will then be combined to see if each school reached its goal of achieving 2,000 miles, the equivalent distance from Central Bedfordshire to Lapland.

Until 31 December 2024, single bus journeys will cost no more than £2 on most routes around Central Bedfordshire.

The government’s “Get Around for £2” scheme limits bus fares for single journeys to a maximum of £2 on bus journeys around the country. The offer has been extended to the end of December 2024 and now that Grant Palmer services have joined the scheme, most bus journeys in Central Bedfordshire are included. Why not make the most of your local bus services and travel around Central Bedfordshire for no more than £2 for a single journey?

Find out more on GOV.UK.

A number of Arriva bus routes have timetable changes from Sunday 19 November.

These include Routes F70 and F77 (Luton – Dunstable – Leighton Buzzard – Milton Keynes) which include more F77 journeys via Tilsworth, and enhanced evening and Sunday services on route F77.  This is funded through the Council’s Bus Services Improvement Plan in partnership with the UK Government.

Routes A, Z, 28 / 28B and 31 in the Luton and Dunstable area will have revised timetables, and route Z will no longer serve Linmere (The Farmstead).  This is partially replaced by services 28/28B. 

 For further details go to Public transport

Residents can now explore Biggleswade in a whole new way! We're delighted to announce the launch of a cycle hire scheme for residents of Biggleswade in partnership with Bedfordshire Rural Communities Charity (BedsRCC) and cycle hire company App-Bike. The 12-month pilot scheme is funded from contributions secured from a local development and BedsRCC. You can sign up at App-Bike.

School pupils in Central Bedfordshire will join thousands of children across the UK taking part in Walk to School Week (15 - 19 May 2023).

Walk to School Week takes place during Living Streets' National Walking Month each May, with this year’s challenge ‘Walk with Wildlife’ encouraging children to travel actively to school every day of the week. Meeting various animals along the way, they'll learn about the important reasons to walk and the difference it can make for individuals, communities and the planet.

Families are encouraged to walk, cycle, scoot or ‘Park and Stride’ for the whole week to see the big differences that come from small steps, from healthier and happier children to fewer cars outside the school gates.

Pupils, teachers, and parents across Central Bedfordshire are being encouraged to walk, wheel, or jump on their bikes and scooters for the 2023 Big Walk and Wheel schools challenge.

Central Bedfordshire Council, with the support of sustainable transport charity Sustrans, is promoting the two-week national school challenge, which runs from Monday 20 March to Friday 31 March.

Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel will inspire pupils to make active journeys to school, improve air quality where they live, and help them to discover how these changes benefit their world.

The challenge is open to all schools, it’s free to take part and there are daily prizes to be won. The idea is to persuade pupils, teachers, and parents to leave their cars at home and choose active travel for their school journey. The Big Walk and Wheel challenge