Members of Guernsey Sixth Form Centre’s Active Travel Group campaigned for policy changes and a unified plan to tackle Guernsey’s ‘car-centric culture’ at an event they organised in a school hall packed with 16 deputies alongside parents, students, and teachers.
Deputy Ross Le Brun described the event as the island’s largest youth-led political engagement ever.
Monty Desforges, founder of the Sixth Form Centre’s Active Travel Group, said the island needed a unified plan to combat dangers posed by motor vehicle use.
‘I’ve had many close calls with cars. I’ve been lightly tapped by the back from cars going quickly almost because you’re a cyclist,’ he said.
Mr Desforges said he and his cohort favoured segregated bike lanes where they could be accommodated, rather than more Ruettes Tranquilles, as it would remove the risk of overtaking.
Teachers and students appealed to deputies for island-wide policies to encourage sustainable modes of travel. Reasons cited include better safety for pedestrians, especially children, and long-term health benefits.
Several highlighted the School Street scheme, taking off at primary and secondary education sites, as a positive example, where motor vehicles cannot access certain streets near schools during drop-off and pick-up times.
Policy & Resources Committee president Lindsay de Sausmarez, a long-term campaigner for cycling, highlighted the importance of schools to lobby for improvements to sustainable travel.
She said a colleague from Jersey remarked that the biggest difference between the islands was the large number of people cycling, in particular children.
In their spring 2026 audit, the Health Improvement Commission found that 51% of primary school children used active travel options for the school commute. An increase from last year was partly attributed to the introduction of Bikeability family courses in April.
Deputy Le Brun said that he expected more School Streets would be introduced around the island.
‘It’s snowballing, as the more it happens, the more other children are saying “why can’t we have that?”
‘I’ll continue upsetting people on this, but it’s all getting somewhere.’
Education, Sport & Culture president Paul Montague praised the event and said his committee would support the initiative in any way it could.
‘Active Travel will be one of those really important data points that we want to check on,’ he said.
‘We’re going to be empowering our education governance boards... to make sure that they challenge the schools on what they are doing to ensure they support any of these initiatives from young people for active travel.’
Deputy Sally Rochester from the Environment & Infrastructure Committee echoed Mr Desforges’ call for a unified plan to make streets safer.
‘We’ve got an active travel plan for the north of the island... and in this political term we’ve made it a commitment to have an active travel plan from the Bridge to St Peter Port,’ she said.
‘Currently there is no plan to map out and deliver active travel infrastructure on the rest of the island, so that’s something that I think we probably need to do now.’