Hundreds of thousands of pounds will be ploughed into improving walking and cycling routes across Dorset as part of efforts to reduce traffic in towns and get people active.

Dorset Council has been handed a £483,000 cash lump sum from the Government's Department for Transport.

The cash, which comes from the DfT's Active Travel Fund, will be spent on improvements to walking and cycling routes across the county, as council bosses move towards a greener Dorset.

The cash grant comes following the results of a recent Government survey, which found that 77 per cent of people in England support reducing traffic in towns and cities, and 78 per cent support reduction in traffic in their local area or neighbourhood.

Dorset Council held its own survey over the summer, asking residents where they believed improvements could be made to support walking and cycling. The results will be used to help decide where the latest funding will be spent.

Councillor Ray Bryan, Portfolio Holder for Highways, Travel and Environment, said: “Over the summer months, we heard ideas about where improvements could be made to support more walking and cycling.

"Thank you to the 1,000+ residents from across the county that responded. We reviewed all the ideas. We then spoke with local members and stakeholders [such as town councils] on the ideas that could be progressed relatively quickly following a consultation period.

"We then analysed those ideas in more detail and initial feasibility design work was completed.”

The three main themes (accounting for 66 per cent of comments) identified by residents and businesses were provision for cycling (434 comments), reduced speed of traffic (396 comments) and improved provision for walking (320 comments).

Individual responses can be viewed at https://dorsetsafestreetsmap.commonplace.is/

A Dorset Council spokesman said: "From this evidence, and in discussion with other key stakeholders Dorset Council has identified a shortlist of high priority projects which can be implemented quickly and will deliver the biggest impact. Residents will be asked for their views on these ideas in a consultation which will launch shortly."

Earlier in the year, Dorset Council was awarded £128,000 as part of the Emergency Active Travel Fund, together with further support from the Re-opening the High Streets Fund. The aim of these funds were to support more people to walk and cycle to help town centres to re-open. Some examples of where this money was used were:

- Part time closure of Shaftesbury High Street to enable safer access to the town centre and safe operation of the market

- Minor closure of road and reorganisation of one-way working and bus provision at West Bay to enable greater pedestrian space

- Widened footways from parking spaces in Wimborne town centre

- Road closed in Lyme Regis to permit safer access for pedestrians

- Widened footways from carriageway space in Blandford

- Widened footways from parking spaces in Swanage

- Roads closed, taxi ranks and loading bays suspended and carriageway re-allocated to provide additional footway space and market space in Bridport

- Altered signals timings at toucan crossings to minimise waiting times for pedestrians and cyclists

- Maintenance of existing cycle paths to restore full width use and support social distancing

- Additional cycle parking in town centres and at one school

- Cycle monitoring upgrades on new and existing cycle links to monitor impacts on cycling and pedestrian usage of the network

- School Streets interventions to restrict access during pick up and drop off times (Upton and Dorchester)