Schools across Kent have pledged to promote green travel to cut traffic and air pollution levels as well as improve pupils’ fitness.

More than 80 schools in the region were presented with their green pledge certificates at the KM Charity Team Forum are promising to promote walking, cycling, scooter use or Park and Stride for the next three years.

The impact of the walk to school campaign in the county has been considerable with 270,000 school-run car journeys removed from the county’s roads last academic year.

Simon Dolby from the KM Charity Team said that the equivalent volume of CO2 removed from the environment weighed the same as 10 times the weight of Big Ben or 1,000 sumo wrestlers.

He praised schools in the county for their commitment to the green travel campaign and said it was not too late for schools to join this academic year.

He said: “This year we are using the new version of Walk on Wednesday which is called Super Wow! and we still have some of the resource boxes available for schools wanting to hop on board.”

The campaign is supported by Kent County Council, Medway Council, the London Borough of Bexley, Eurostar, 3Rs teacher recruitment, Ashford Borough Council, Maidstone Borough Council, Volker Highways, Countrystyle Recycling, Gallaghers Aggregates, Specsavers, Bel UK, Whitefriars, Golding Homes and Orbit.

Schools wanting to find out about Super Wow! or businesses wanting to sponsor a local school to use the scheme should view www.kmwalktoschool.co.uk or email Mr Dolby on sdolby@thekmgroup.co.uk

• To view the full list of schools making the green pledge click here.