The Ramblers is calling on people in Wales to nominate their area for Britain’s Best Walking Neighbourhood Award. The walking charity is searching for the places that put pedestrians first and lead the way in enabling residents to walk every day for transport or leisure.

Newtown made the final shortlist in 2018, with judges saying the town’s many green spaces make it attractive for walking, with two footbridges across the river giving pedestrians easy traffic-free access to shops and other facilities. They added that many residents use off-road walking routes to take children to school, visit the town centre or reach public transport connections.

Vanessa Griffiths, Ramblers chief executive, said: “We have a vision of a country designed for walking, in the open countryside, and close to where we all live and work. By making it easy for people to walk their everyday local journeys, we help them live more active, healthier lives. Not only that, we help tackle some of society’s biggest problems including growing levels of obesity, social isolation, congestion and air pollution. Sadly, for many of us the areas we live in have been designed to favour cars rather than people, making walking unsafe, or unpleasant.”

“With this award, we want to highlight the places and people already doing a great job to make walking easier in their local neighbourhoods. We also want to encourage others to think about the small changes they could make to improve the walkability of their neighbourhoods and health and wellbeing of their residents, while creating more vibrant communities.”

To nominate your neighbourhood, visit www.ramblers.org.uk/nominate

The deadline for nominations is March 3