Walking – Active Travel Salisbury

The aims of the Active Travel Salisbury website is:

To provide information on walking around the city for people of all ages, all abilities and all levels, whether it’s kids walking to school, shopping at the market, walking for health, visiting one of Salisbury’s many Independent shops, popping to the tip or picking up copy of the Salisbury Journal or even a takeaway.
To enable Salisbury City Councillors, Wiltshire Councillors and Council Officers to understand the challenges residents have to deal with on a daily basis in walking round the city.
To identify recommendations where improvements are required by Salisbury City Councillors, Wiltshire Councillors and Council Officers.

Background: Walking has many benefits including boosting our physical well-being, mental health, providing social interaction and crossing the city as an everyday activity.

Salisbury is a wonderful city in which to walk, with beautiful views and many traffic free routes that make walking relatively easy. Whilst many residents live in the centre of the city, the majority live on the outskirts but are only 1.5 to 2 miles from the city centre which is only 20-30 min walk for most residents.

Current status of walking in Salisbury: Salisbury is a beautiful city to walk around with views of the Cathedral and the historical buildings. Many residents can reach the city after a 20-30min walk after which they can enjoy a drink in one of the many coffee shops in the city. However, there are several challenges that need to be addressed including safer street design, improved crossing points, continuous footways with appropriate dropped kerbs, reduced traffic volumes in the ccty centre and increased funding for improving walking infrastructure. There are only a limited number of school streets in Salisbury where it is safer for children to walk to school

Advantages of walking in Salisbury:

Residents that live in the city have access from their front doors into our beautiful city. The city can be reached from the residential areas after a relatively short walk of 10-20 mins for most residents often using green routes. The city has some lovely traffic free green routes including St Marks Path, Town Path, Avon Valley Path and areas such Queen Elizabeth Gardens, Victoria Park and Churchill Gardens which are areas to enjoy away from the hustle and bustle of the city and motor vehicles. We have a number of underpasses under Churchill Way e.g. The majority of our city centre pedestrian crossings change within 10-20 seconds of activation. There are also several leisure routes in and around the city centre that provide pleasant environments for walking and dog-walking including, Bishopdown Rec, Castle Hill Country Park, Broken Bridges, Laverstock Water Meadows and Downs Bemerton and Barnard’s Folly at Bemerton Heath and Harnham Slope to name but a few. Shopmobility in the Maltings provides mobility scooters for residents and visitors who need assistance moving round the city.

Disadvantages of walking in Salisbury:

Those using mobility scooters, wheelchairs and prams have particular issues moving around the city.
Some routes into the city are along arterial routes where there is no choice but to use the busy roads including London Rd, Devices Rd, Churchfields Rd.
Many streets within the historical city have narrow pavements which creates congestion for pedestrians and difficult access for those in wheelchairs.
Obstacles on pavements such as A-boards create hazards for pedestrians and
High traffic volumes are not unusual in the city including 11,000 motor vehicles per day e.g. on Fisherton St (Wiltshire Council data) increase the danger to pedestrians and other road users. The Salisbury citizen project using Telraam traffic monitors gives us an indication of traffic volumes.
Lack of enforcement of city centre speed limits and parking regulations are a massive factor increasing risk to walkers.
Parking on pavements results in problems for pedestrians and for those with disabilities and also results in broken paving stones which become a hazard for all users.
Several crossing points within the city are undesignated crossings at which drivers do not have to give way to pedestrians e.g. High St, Minster St and Blue Boar Row.
National Highways have announced that they are going to demolish both Wyndham Rd and Victoria Rd footbridge over the A36 Churchill way dual carriageway and that only the Victoria Rd footbridge will be rebuilt. The loss of the Wyndham footbridge will create a severance from one part of the city to another (local groups and politicians are in discussion with National Highways as there has been no consultation with residents and the data provided by National Highways to support their decision is very weak).
There is a lack of funding for improving walking infrastructure active travel through the Local Highways and Footway Improvement Group (LHFIGs) – currently only £24,000 is available per year.

Recommendations and suggested solutions to improve walking in Salisbury:

As part of the Local Transport Plan 4 and national policies, pedestrians should be given the highest priority when considering highway designs to promote Active Travel.

Prioritise walking and public transport across the city but particularly in those areas that need it the most e.g. Bemerton-West, Bemerton-South and St Martin-Central. The announcement of the “Pride in Place” funding (£20MILLION) for Bemerton Heath will hopefully be used to address some of the improvements in walking infrastructure and accessibility for pedestrians and those using public transport.

Reduce the volume of traffic in the city centre by implementing a traffic management system through the Salisbury Transportation Plan.

Widen the pavements across the city to enhance mobility across the city e.g. Catherine St and the chequers but not limited to Salt Lane and Brown St area.

Control the number of vehicles parking on pavements in and around the city by enabling i) Wiltshire Council Civil Enforcement Officers to prioritise this problem and ii) installing appropriate bollards on the edges of pavements.

Improve crossing points across the city where pedestrians have priority over drivers including:

Improving the undesignated crossings in High St, Minster St and Blue Boar Row by installing continuous footways such as raised, pedestrian‑priority junctions where drivers have to give way to pedestrians
Improve the controlled crossing points such that pedestrians are given priority as has been e.g. Leeds are currently trialling the use of vivacity sensors (since 2023) coupled with AI technology that detects pedestrians and provide priority over vehicles at controlled crossings.
Consider implementing low cost side road zebra crossings (without Belisha beacons) as have been trialled in Manchester and Wales.

Implement 20mph on Exeter St and 20mph areas in all residential areas with modal filters including raised humps to reduce speeding.

Complete the key gaps in the Salisbury walking network and address the key walking routes identified in the Local Salisbury Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan (LCWIP).

Create a green spine across the city to present pleasant and safe routes that encourage well-being and wildlife as promoted by the Salisbury Area Green Partnership.

Improve wayfinding and mapping routes across Salisbury.

Re-engage with the Salisbury Disabled Access & Walking Forum (SWDAF) which has not met for several years.

Wiltshire Council must improve the finances available for improving walking infrastructure in and around the city. They can do this in several ways including

Local Highways and Footway Improvement Groups (LHFIGs) – currently only a trivial £24,000 is available in Salisbury which does not provide many improvements and the LHFIG projects that have not been funded currently amounts to over £200,000.
Developer contributions i.e. S106 is said to account for £8.397 MILLION (Oct 2024) – whilst this would provide substantial monies for walking routes the money is currently ring fenced for other projects such as the Harnham Gyratory.
Active Travel England provides funding to increase the number of local journeys being walked. Wiltshire Council have recently been awarded over £3M over 4 years towards improving the walking infrastructure in Wiltshire. Currently the council has the lowest score possible. However, if the Council increases their score with ATE it is feasible that, like other council’s with higher capability scores e.g. 2, that they would receive closer to £10M. The Council must improve their score with ATE to secure greater amounts of funding and must use their internal resources to achieve this.

Ongoing activities and discussions:

November 2025: LHFIG proposal has been submitted to reduce the speed on Exeter Road to 20mph.

December 2025: Discussion have taken place with Wiltshire Council through the CLP to implement vivacity sensor prioritisation at crossing points for pedestrians across the city – the response was that stated that National Highways plan to replace lights on A36 and that intelligent signalling is unlikely in Salisbury.

December 2025: Through questions submitted to Wiltshire Cabinet related to transport management strategies in Salisbury we have been informed that the council are currently in the process of refreshing the Salisbury Transport Plan to align with the adopted Local Transport Plan 4 (LTP4) which will promote active travel and road safety as well as encouraging walking, cycling, public transport, and shared mobility. The Council has informed us that the refresh is currently in progress and is programmed for publication later 2026.

What can you do?

Submit a “Local Highways and Footway Improvement Groups (LHFIGs)” for an improvement in the city e.g. for a dropped kerb for mobility chairs/wheelchairs – this is an easy form to complete and submit to Salisbury Area Board.

Contact Wiltshire Council to encourage them to improve walking routes:

Email: martin.smith@wiltshire.gov.uk