In weather that would have had many parents reaching for their car keys, the county's biggest ever National Walk to School Week attracted a healthy turnout at Wheatley CoE Primary School yesterday.

Dodging speeding rat-runners, braving busy crossings and negotiating narrow roads, the youngsters demonstrated exactly why so many families usually travel the short distance to school by car.

A surge in rat-running since the roadworks began on the A40, near the Green Road Roundabout in Headington, Oxford, has added to the problem.

The school has now created a Travel Plan designed to encourage more children to walk or cycle and is calling for major restructuring of the village road network.

It wants footpaths and cycle paths created through the village and safe crossings installed.

Oxfordshire County Council's director for children, young people and families, Keith Bartley, joined a walking bus to Wheatley Primary yesterday morning and the former Arsenal and England defender Martin Keown was due to join them todaytuesday.

Parent Graeme Freeman, of Wheatley, who joined the walking bus yesterday with his three daughters Eve, nine, Zoe, five and Heidi, three, said he hoped the travel plan would persuade many more families to leave their cars at home.

He said: "Walking in Wheatley is really difficult. People would love to walk but it only takes one narrow pavement to make it potentially hazardous.

"The rat-running has got a lot worse because of the roadworks. If there were improvements it would turn a few dozen children walking to school into a hundred."

Cath Hogan, whose daughter Annabel, 11, is a pupil, has always walked her children to school.

She said: "I don't drive so I walk everywhere. It's good exercise for children they don't get enough and it gives you a chance to talk to your children about their day."