00:00:45 – News from around and about
00:14:00 – Manifesto for Walking Mums – Dr Louise Platt
00:43:27 – Jill Borcherds and Tina Walker, Cycling UK Stevenage, on their election campaigning strategy
Hi everyone and welcome to active travel Cafe tonight we are joined by Dr Louise Platt sharing her Manifesto for walking moms and after that we’ll be joined by Jill and Tina from stevenage cycling campaign cycling UK uh talking about their election campaigning very timely um looking forward to that but before we
Get on to our speakers why don’t we share some news from the room who’s got something they would like to share uh I see a waving hand from Greg Morgan Greg you’re up um today this morning in fact uh our elected members very um gratefully um formerly adopted our Access Control
Barrier policy and this will enable is to be removed altered to standard designs which are compliant with current guidance across the city thank you Greg what city York York York we’ve Ed all our barriers all 1,000 and whatever they were and approximately 700ish of them um are non-compliant and
We’ve got the Mandate and the money to get rid of them really adjust them however I just like to say if Mark or Ken are on the call with from transport initiatives thank them for their helping get us this far but we’ve done it we’re on our way
Brilliant Greg you’ll definitely have to come back and report on this project to active travel Cafe because I I know lots of areas including my own trying to something similar yeah thank you and congratulations Adam you’ve got your hand up yeah this one’s more of a thank
You to everybody that attends uh we’re going through a fundraising drive at the moment um we have hit around about 340 our Target is 600 and it’s all down to you lovely people uh making what we do on a weekly basis actually happen and U yeah it’s got us over that risk barrier
But we want to build up a bit of a buffer so but I just want to say thank you everybody for who has contributed I will be cheeky and put the link in the chat yeah um if you have yeah you can give as little as 50p uh um but I hope
You get what a lot from this but thank you so much for for giving a few helps yes thank you Adam and you those funds are used to pay for the zoom and and hosting and you know we keep the cost very very low everything’s done
Voluntarily but if you can chip in to keep us going that would be great so I will share Adam’s thanks thank you uh Bob your news uh hi yeah just to say that um next week I’m not going to be here because I’m going to be at the leaving du for
The legendary Roger gean who’s leaving cycling UK after many many many many years he’s still going to be involved in things as he’s working part-time for transport Action Network um but this is a thing that happens with uh a lot of us as we uh get
Into the Autumn of Our Lives um so uh he’ll still be around I I don’t know you know just in case any of you want to send messages to him at cing UK before he he finally goes um so just that bit of news thank you Bob and uh I I still hope
We hear lots from Roger through transport Action Network um but yes he’s been done a lot recycling UK um Matthew your news um hi yeah just um interesting news from Darlington um with we’re we’re um we’re putting together our second phase of LC whip which is um a new set of
Segregated cycle way that’s going to get make us two-thirds of the way from a big area of employment to the town center so obviously driven by commuting trips trying to get modal shift there I Trel England um did their first and then second pass the designs and they’ve um
They’re really unhappy with uh traffic crossing the corridor so we’ve got a main uh transport Corridor and there’s a lot of cross movement um from residential roads across the cycleway and they said it just doesn’t hit the new Crossing um measure the new uh the new Pro fora scores too highly um so
This is this is could be leading to an accidental low traffic neighborhood um we like accidental travel we like accidental exercise and now we like accidental low travel neighborhoods um basically uh the only way to stop the conflicts is to stop the rat running which we all I’m hope all know is is
Really great um our local MPS decided to polarize this um Health uh policy intervention by um by initially putting out a post going what do you think of low traffic neighborhoods I hear they’re a bit contentious and when a load of people piled in going no they’re great mate
Rishy come um commissioned a report which said they were great as well he’s now gone after careful consideration I don’t think we should be guinea pigs for this kind of divisive uh policy da da da um so really interesting um news but we’re pressing ahead with it and we’re
We’re putting the tin hel helmet on rather than the foil hat and we’re going to keep on pushing for a low travel neighborhood in Darlington thanks Matthew now I’ve got some more questions but I’m I’m just going to point out we haven’t had a great deal of diversity in our question
Askers so um if we’ve got anyone maybe a woman who would like to sorry um share some news I’m just making sure you feel extra welcome uh and please do put your hand up and share H you are up got a bit okay um two bits of news
Last night we had a presentation from the team at the city council who doing the Avenues um for about six months we’ve had Cambridge Street in Glasgow knocked out whilst they build a cycle way through it and the entire length of saky Hall Street is also ripped out uh
Because they’re going to redo that as Avenues um with some diversions which sound a bit hairy for taking Cycles off The Pedestrian area so that’s going to be fun and there’s also been some Reflections we’ve had two 11y olds killed in the first part of this year by
Refuge truck drivers um one of them the bike clearly ended up with the victim underneath the truck um and from the police markers he was probably dragged about 25 meters under the truck before the driver stopped um so there’s a big outcry on trucks and such like operating
Um and how are we going to keep people safe by removing the risk uh it’s an interesting one and a big debate thanks H Andrew have you got some news and I’ll apologize if my audio is quiet I’ll see if I can tweak some settings so let me know if I end up
Yelling at you Andrew your news your audio is fine um had um MSP Mark rusell ask a parliamentary question um regarding planning issues npf 4 in Scotland has been a massive Improvement on prioritizing active travel and 20min minute neighborhoods however there’s there’s two bits of planning guidance
That sit below that that are are very much out of date and and don’t follow those um sort of philosophies um one’s a planning advice note from uh 2005 and one’s transport assessment guidance from 2012 it’s the sort of thing that means that Developers um although npf says they’ve got to
Consider active travel routes from their housing scheme they’re building to things like Railway stations they always end up saying oh we can’t do that because it’s outside the red line area but then because of this old guidance which says they’ve got to consider every road Junction in the town um it means
They can say oh we want something ripped out that was put in to make things better for people walking and cycling because it mean it’ll take people two minutes longer to drive to my new housing scheme so uh Mark asked when these were going to be updated to uh comply with the
Principles in mpf 4 and the ministers come back and said uh oh right we’re thinking about it so I suspect that’s one that dropped through the gaps and the floorboards um the other one is that um on the border between Sterling and per and kin Ross um there’s a quiet Back
Road B 8033 that bypasses the A9 Trunk Road which a few miles before had been the M9 effectively it’s it’s a dual carriageway Motorway but without a slip Road they’ve closed the um the back road um and the the Perth and kin Ross have signed posted a diversion which sends
Everybody down the A9 Trunk Road and when I pointed out they might want an alternative for people cycling um said uh no we’ve done a a diversion for the traffic pointed out cyclists are traffic and suggested that this was controversial pointed out no um and you
Got the point that he was saying it’ be confusing for drivers if we put up another diversion anyway um road to transport Scotland and MSP transport Scotland had a word with them and they’ve worked out that there’s an there is a footway that cyclists could use um
But again we’re still working on trying to get them to put a sign up that doesn’t direct um cycle tourists who don’t know the area to ride down the A9 Jo carriageway so work in progress um but if you are cycling around here for God’s sake keep off the A9 seems a neverend
Battle in um Road works and diversions doesn’t it um yeah Robin your news i’ got my eye on the time as well um so we have um some good news uh so we uh if you went to the active County active whatever it was conference at in Oxford
Last year you may have heard of the Strategic active Travel network which is like a county scale LC whip um being developed in Oxfordshire with the help of pja that is now largely complete and um really just waiting now for Council approval and then it will be published that’s going to be really
Interesting and great document I’m sure some of you will want to wave it in front of your own counselors and say why can’t we have one of these if you’re in a in a kind of rural uh mixed kind of County um I’ll tell you about that once
It gets there stage of sharing we’ve got a motion against ltns coming to the Oxford city council even though they are nothing to do with um transport really it’s a kind of attempted wrecking motion so we’re mobilizing against that that’s next Monday evening so I’ll probably
Tell you about that next Tuesday and uh more National interest uh there’s a great new report out from create streets about uh Planning Development um and minim in transport by having what they call Gentle density and uh obviously planning in lots of active travel routes within the developments uh I’ll put a
Link into that uh they’ve got another report uh launching um one that’s supported by cycling UK next Tuesday um which is one of the reasons the Roger gein’s leaving du is on Tuesday evening and um there’s also an event in Oxford if you’re in and around Oxford on
Wednesday evening where we’re looking at their their report in the Oxfordshire context and I will post a link into that in the chat as well um that looks really good work thank you thank you Robin and if we’ve had news from Oxford well I’ve got to do a little bit from
Cambridge and that is you you may have seen the case for Cambridge uh report that has come out there’s not really much in it other than and yet another um approach to get yet more house in and more transport improvements in Cambridge because you know things here aren’t
Complex enough already um but as we get a better understanding of what’s coming there we’ll we’ll report more on the case for Cambridge and what that means for transport particularly between Cambridge and Oxford um excellent Kathy you are our lucky last question so thanks for putting your hand up your
Turn Kath sorry your news not your question I’ll just improve the diversity factor a bit um it’s really exciting we have finally after 30 years of campaigning got the trial for bikes on trams in Greater Manchester starting and I’ve managed to get myself a place on
The uh one of the trials next week um Dame Sarah store is going to be there as well so hopefully there’ll be some really good photo opportunities as a result of that but you know it’s been something that’s been a very very very long campaign as I’m sure Steve Connor
Knows as well um so really exciting news brilliant and hopefully yet another topic that we can have um reported back to the group see how it goes yeah brilliant thank you Kathy and Well Done everybody we finishing bang on time with our news which means we get to hear from
The wonderful Dr Louise Pratt and all about the manifesto for walking moms so Louise I’ll hand over to you to introduce yourself um what brought you to this Manifesto for walking moms and and your presentation over to you Louise thank you very much um I think
This is the right one is that everyone can see those slides brilliant um so thank you so much for inviting me I’m you know I’m G to confess I’m not an active travel expert I’ve kind of accidentally fallen into that through this work within within um the kind of
Very nature of it I suppose so um this is a project that I started on my return from maternity leave in 2021 um and the context of this is particularly embedded within the kind of lockdowns um of covid um in Greater Manchester which were particularly harsh
Um if anyone is from that area might remember we were locked down for maybe around over 300 days out of a year so um that’s the kind of context of this work Um so just to kind of give an overview of this work that the why was kind of exploring I you know I’m I’m I’m a cultural geography I was exploring how when we walk with children we we kind of contribute and make sense of our mothering and that’s kind of the
Starting point of of that work um and how that happens through our emotional um and embodied relationship with the spaces through which we walk through and that you know thinking about um the barriers those physical barriers um the kind of maybe mental barriers that kind of impede that walking practice as well
Um and the nature of walking with a child is a gendered Leisure activity so um how might we kind of make this walk in practice particularly for mothers better um so just to kind of really briefly kind of underpin this with the kind of theoretical positioning I won’t
Dwell on this um but the idea is that kind of how we move through the world helps us make sense of it essentially is kind of the position I’m starting with and um and we do this in in our interactions with other people with other stuff with kind of the kind of
More than human world if you like um you know the way in which the ground feels beneath our feet that they that kind of helps us make sense of of the world and particularly when we’re walking with children it adds an extra kind of negotiation um to make sense of the
World around us and you know particularly one of the things I was quite interested in this work is how when we walk through spaces it might be kind of seen as quite a mundane activity and we take it for granted um and then when we walk through those spaces as a
Mother particularly maybe with a pram maybe in a postpartum body that is you know leaky it is painful we have to kind of relearn some of those walking skills um and do things a little bit differently um so the the context the data that that was kind of gathered for
This was kind of accidental Auto ethnography so whilst I was on maternity leave I’d already I I was already interested in Walking practices I’d written about walking with dogs I’d written about walking processional cultures I’m interested in movement through spaces um on foot and this kind
Of was just something of Interest so as I was taking little walks around my local neighborhood I was making kind of notes about what I saw how I felt um and then when I returned to work I turned it into a more formal research project I got ethical approval I did some
Interviews with some walking moms I took a walk with some moms in my local area so I live in prestwich which is North Manchester um and we went through a walk through through Heaton Park which is a large Municipal Park and then I got emailed Reflections based on a series of
Questions from 21 um UK and Irish walking moms about their walking practices so the first thing that I did um out of this was I developed um a Walkin with babies comic um which I can share links with um um I can even post out hard copies if anyone would like
Hard copies of this um I worked with um boob boy designs who was an artist and we looked at the data that was generated and we kind of turned it into this sort of comic book style um and I really wanted to do this because using this
Visual makes us think about time and space in a different way it kind of was allowed this kind of creative kind of animation of the walking practices of walking moms and it allowed for lots of different voices to emerge as well but also kind of the stuff of walking we
Could kind of start to demonstrate like kind of what the pram does um kind of how the kind of interaction with the child might feel um so that was the kind of first thing that I did um to kind of bring this data to life um I then got a little bit of
Funding from the leisure studies Association which is the scholarly Association related to leisure studies um and I developed again with Caroline from boob boy designs we started to develop a walking mom’s M Manifesto um so this was essentially taking all these kind of reflections of walking moms um to build this you know
Very simple and I think when when if you look at it obviously this next slide is not great but if you want to go and have a look at it there’s a highres version um on this link um the a lot of this kind of maps on to you
Know healthy streets and um you know these kind of you know just kind of nice places to be um so this kind of emerged from things that people wanted and I think one of the kind of things that also emerged from this was a lot of the kind
Of contradictions of walking with a child so the idea of pushing a buggy over cobbles was like amazing but also awful at the same time so how can we kind of understand these contradictions um it was amazing because it helped to get a baby off to sleep but also it was really hard
Work um the you know really simple things like how moms could me Al map out where the dropped curbs were in their neighborhood um and where benches were you know and how important benches were to to take a rest to feed um and I think a lot of the things
That kind of emerged from this were that moms were kind of becoming like um what I kind of describe as sort of mundane activists so you know they were moving bins out of the way so they could push a buggy down the street and I don’t think
Any of these mums and I don’t don’t think I would have even called myself an activist but these were kind of really small access making practices that moms were making um you know they were emailing cafes so I don’t know if you remember during the pandemic lots of
Cafes put up you know um seating outside but it was blocking walkways so there was like you know they’d message cafes in really polite ways to say can you just be mindful of you know your chairs your tables where your people are queueing um so you know these kind of
Actions were happening in a really kind of simple way um obviously cars being parked up is is really problematic and but other things was you know people wanting to see something nice they don’t kind of M they don’t kind of um care about the weather in particular but they
Wanted you know to be spaces that made them feel safe so we kind of developed this Manifesto of really simple things that um that moms wanted um in in their walking practices and this was this was Leisure walking but it was also kind of mundane walking and one of the things
That kind of emerged from this is how how our walking practices change over time um so particularly during the pandemic um going for a walk with a baby was a way to get out of the house and and you know I’ve written a whole paper
About this um and it was a walk for a walk’s sake um whereas as kind of restrictions were lifted and um shops opened up moms were saying actually we tagged on chores to the walk we didn’t feel like a walk for a walk’s sake was a
Good use of time anymore that kind of everyday life started to creep back in um so you know I’m a geographer I want to know what this says about places um and I think one of the kind of key things that I still really need to
Explore is this idea of babies as space and plac makers and I don’t think that gets accounted for very much and I think when I have engaged with some active travel um events or conversations there seems to be this kind of idea that children start at school age um there’s a lot of
Conversation about the walk to school but actually what about this earlier um this earlier stage um where you know babies they might be immobile in the sense that they’re not walking but they are contributing to the walking practices of the parents um so this is a kind of you know
It’s a place it’s about exploring place-based solutions for well-being for mothers particularly you know it can be a lonely experience on maternity leave and if you can’t access green spaces you can’t access shops um that becomes a challenge so that idea of sort of disconnectivity and connectivity Community is really
Important um yeah just this kind of a tune into babies and toddlers perspectives on place you know what happens at that lower level um is really important um so just to kind of Round Up really hopefully not taken more of my 10 minutes um what am I doing next I think
Is maybe of interest um I’m working with Anna Powell who is in Art and Design at University of Huddersfield we’ve got a small pot of funding to work with some artists to start to do some creative mapping of walking practices of early families in Huddersfield um and home fth
Um we’re hopefully going to also be working with a sound artist on that project and that will result in an exhibition um in Huddersfield this summer um and we’ve just myself um Dr Sam Wilkinson who’s in mmu as well and I’m sure many of you know um
Harry lron Spencer who’s at the Active travel Academy in Westminster we’ve got a like tiny like tiny tiny pot of funds to do a pilot project which is looking at how disabled parents and parents of disabled children um use kind of their preparation for a walk in terms of
Access making so we’re kind of doing this kind of method where we’re going to get them to photograph what’s in their bag and get them or what’s in their buggy tray to get them to talk about how they kind of prepare for um their walking practices as either a disabled
Parent or um having a child um who is disabled um so yeah that’s kind of what’s coming up down the line um and as I said I’m happy to post out hard copies of the manifesto and the walkin babies comic um I have I have copies of those
That I can share so thank you very much thank you Louise thank you so much um I just have to say so many of us are accidental campaigners so you’re in good company here don’t don’t worry at all um and the questions have come flying in already
While you’ve been speaking so I’ll let you take a breath and then let’s get on with some some questions and we’re getting lots of Applause from our our um attendees oh thank you yeah brilliant brilliant um excellent so um first question from Ben so much of this overlaps with issues
For disabled people disabled people have made use of the equality act have there been efforts the equality act around protected characteristic of maternity um and there’s also been a link to the wheels for well-being guide um for anyone who’s interested in that that’s in the chat uh so Louise connections
With the camp disabled um campaigning um I’ve not noticed any to be honest um I’ve not um not that not that I’ve seen um specifically um I know we I’ve been working with some people around kind of play as well and play spaces and I have started some
Conversations with a colleague of mine who is in the law school who is particularly interested in um the rights of the child and particularly disabled children as well um and we’re hoping to maybe kind of explore some ideas around that um so yeah um it’s not an it’s not an area
That I’ve looked at specifically but it’s something that I’m hoping to kind of look up with some legal academics in the future yeah y brilliant I think there’ll be lots of um Keen eyes on that um Robin asks is your work focused on mom with babies or moms with older children and I
Guess say well all children are I suppose older than babies so you know what what are the different age groups that we might find this most relevant for yes so um initially my work was looking at not to um and I kind of called it infants I
Spent a lot of time trying to figure out what to call that it’s sort of the kind of early years phase and it’s very but but the walking changes very much when when the child becomes more mobile um and um more inquisitive and the way in which
They want to walk impact so a lot of the moms talked about taking the child out for a buggy was brilliant in the buggy taking the child in a PR was brilliant for their mental health because they got to talk to other moms but as soon as the
Child got older and wanted to be out of the buggy that connection with other moms started to diminish on the walk because you’ve got your attention elsewhere and I thought was that was kind and obviously that reflects my own experiences of well you know try and meet up with another mom with toddlers
You’re all in different directions um so yeah so I think that is really interesting I think I just saw something pop up in the chat about Jenny middle work um I’m really interested to see how her work spands out around children with um invisible disabilities
As well um so yeah I’ve kind of at the moment it’s been around not three but we’ve just had a conversation with Sam and Harry about our new project we whether we’ll go up to some older children within that project as well yeah I just think your comment
About how that changes how people can can socialize just reiterates how our public spaces are not not just about moving from A to B they are about the moments of life in between all of that and our community connections and there’s just so much more to those
Spaces and yet we just look at them at how do we fun all cars through it’s um yeah yeah and adding adding in a buggy and a or whatever you know into that is kind of it does complicate it yeah absolutely um another question uh have you been able to audit local Authority
Transport policies to to check to see if they are conscious or active in overcoming gender discrimination in in transport and I guess age discrimination in terms of of young children as well yeah I’ve not I’ve not been able to do that yet so a lot of my work so far has
Been very much from the theoretical perspective I think that’s the next phase now we’re starting to look at how that can kind of impact in place um so yeah that’s kind of something I’d be interested to explore um in the future definitely May maybe with some maybe some specific local
Authorities that would be interested yeah uh Ruth you’ve got a question hello well I just thought I’d take a turn that was so fabulous Louise honestly thank you um I’m 33 years down the line from having a baby and walking and I put in the chat that no one else
Would walk the distances I would walk because they all got too tired and there was nowhere to sit and um but my question is though um it is obviously I know women give birth and therefore have the issues physical issues but a lot of dads do paternity leave now in early
Months and they likewise have problems and grandparents and carers so I just wondered although yours is a mother based research could it be opened out for anyone who is walking with babies Todds yeah absolutely so the projects that we’re doing in Huddersfield will be families so that’s going to be open up
And self-defined as family you know what that means for the that particular group um but yeah I think this kind of focused on Mothers just out of the fact that I was literally emerging from maternity leave myself and it was from my lived experience um and yeah coming out of so
I was researching I was researching the wit walks um and I came back from maternity leave and I was like oh all the stuff I was researching just isn’t happening anymore I need to kind of shift the focus of my work and this was a real natural progression of that
Because it was what I was doing during lockdown but also it kind of kept with that kind of walking practice so yeah I think this kind of focused on M specifically in that moment um but yeah the next phases of the work will be more broadly families and parents or
Grandparents so yeah that’s been a lot of interesting stuff around the intergenerational as well thanks uh Sarah your question um yeah thank you so much I find this really really fascinating um what I what I want to know I thought about this stuff kind of
A lot but what I want to know is has any comparison been done with babies whose moms have walked with them compared to babies whose moms have just put them in the car and not walked with them so for in their in their future years and the way
They see themselves and the way they find their ways around I mean the reason I’ve thought about this is because I teach bikeability and it’s fairly obvious to me that when you’ve at with sort of some of the sort of middle class kids with bikes that they’ve got no understanding about where
They are you know and they kind of think they just don’t know about space whereas the more Street kids do that’s it thank yeah that’s really interesting actually and that’s something we’ve I’ve talked about with some academics around play as well and spaces for play and access to
Play and you know there are sort of certain communities that are like oh they don’t have access to play but actually they make their own play in the spaces that they have and um yeah and it’s something we’ve talked about a little bit as so there’s a kind of a
Little group of academics of was all working in this area about that ease of getting in the car particularly you know um people who have cars it’s easier to to get in the car um and yeah no I did it this morning it was chucking down with rain it was
Quicker to put my child in the car get him to breakfast club and get myself back home for work um but yeah I don’t know if there’s been anything in terms of how that pans out longitudinally and I think it’s very hard in Academia to do longitudinal
Studies these days to get that funded maybe um but I think it’s a really interesting question um yeah yeah I know you’ve had um Elsa talking about the kind of history of the school run and how that’s kind of a recent phenomena that notion of the
School run um sort of since like the 80s and 90s so there is generational differences I think as well there yeah um if I might suggest Louise is also looking at other other countries where children are much more independent with cycling and walking from a young age and
And I definitely know there are studies about you know health and and happiness um and could be could be a starting point to see yeah definitely so I’ve presented some work with um an early year education conference actually and we were looking at babies in the city
And we kind of looked at exploring what it means to be a baby in the city and the kind of um academics from Finland were like well what do you mean you can’t like have your kids in the city it was just so like such an alien concept
That we would find it difficult to take children into cities you know they’re much more am to that um in Scandinavian countries particularly I can definitely attest to that after a recent trip to with friends and their their baby right uh we’ve got lots of questions so we’ll be squeezed
On time so we’re looking for quick fire questions and quickfire answers um next one how much were the children involved in this research um so initially not very because the first round they were very much like Babes in Arms um and then when I went on the walk
With the moms that was much more involvement of children because I could observe their Pathways and what they did and how they interacted um and it is something I want to pick up more because as I said before there kind of seems there’s a lot of research with school age children
Because in the main they are verbal they can share their thought thoughts and feelings they can give feedback whereas there is still I think work to be done around kind of baby geographies and there is there is work in the area particularly in education around the
Kind of um the way babies make space in place um and how we could kind of observe that and I think I’d be really interested in that um there was a I did a symposium in September and and someone presented around like crawling in post industrial
Kind of Landscapes you know that kind of do you let your child crawl around in the mud in a post-industrial landscape um and I think there is loads to explore there about kind of how we capture the experiences of of babies and again you know the work that Jenny Middleton’s
Doing around invisible disabilities my own son is he’s pretty much nonverbal you know so how do I explore you know those kind of EXP experiences yeah yeah thanks uh a question with absolutely no controversy Associated to it whatsoever um what is your view of shared space with
Cyclists um I don’t know if I have one to be honest like yeah I don’t know I don’t think I’ve I’m not sure if I’ve ever encountered it as a problem I think the only problem I have in Manchester is the delivery cyclist um which you know that can be somewhat
Hairy um yeah I’ve not really encountered it maybe because where I live is terrible for cycling so we don’t have many of them um it is a busy road um I think it’s more shared with other pedestrians is is kind of problematic and Street Furniture yeah I guess it just shows
Whether it’s shared use with cyclist other people it’s just that we don’t give enough space to walking and at all really because it’s all given over to the car so absolutely yeah controversy really with that question um next question um from Christopher Birmingham like many local authorities is Cash
Strapped at the moment what are some policies um or some proposed policies that you would like councilors to push P to implement which are either cost neutral or or cost benefits that yeah councils do quickly and cheaply to yeah no I think that’s an interesting one and I think that’s where
I kind of want to start exploring a little bit more um so I have presented some of this work to kind of um business Improvement districts and place managers and not not necessarily local authorities yet um but I think there are kind of like that the man esto was really
Simple things you know tree planting and benches and putting a cover on a bench you know so in the summer you’re shaded and in the winter you’re dry um you know I don’t necessarily maybe maybe they are I don’t know how they high cost interventions in the
Spaces but even just listening to the voices of mothers and I think it’s difficult with mothers is because as our children grow and as I said before you have kind of a different you maybe don’t um necessarily take up the activism in the same way I don’t know I know some
People do um so kind of campaigns like moms for Longs and and those sorts of campaigns are really really really important um but yeah I think as your child grows you you almost forget what it was like to push the buggy you know that those challenges
Change um but yeah I think there could be simple interventions um yeah yeah uh another question is has there been much of of a case made about the economic impact of of a I guess a hostile walking environment particularly for moms I’m guessing that they can’t walk into the
Town Center they might not go to the cafe spend the money or or so on so has there been much made around that I don’t I don’t I don’t know any specific um but yeah I think it is a challenge particularly in certain areas so the so for example certain areas of Manchester
City Center for example you can’t physically get a buggy into a lot of those cafes if they’re listed buildings you know in the kind of old industrial like in the northern quarter for example you know I think there’s maybe a handful of cafes that you could get into with a buggy
Um the um yeah I don’t I don’t know I don’t know is the answer it would be very interesting to think about that economic impact but and I think it it’s kind of hard for me to say because my maternity leave was during lockdown so nobody was kind of spending
That money but I think it is really important you know this moment I always remember this moment of me and this other Ms studing the rain in the precincts in press switch drinking this coffee we’ bought out of a hatch because it was preferable to going home and
Being on our own so I think it is not just about the walking through the spaces it’s about that what that walking allows you to do through those connections with other people I think yeah brilliant uh there is one more question question but we’re out of
Time so I might um Louise point you to the chat it’s um about um connections with school streets and nurseries I think so um there’s a question in the chat there but uh Louise I’d just like to say thank you so much for joining us today and for that wonderful work you’ve
Done and the the comic which I will be sharing with with colleagues so there’s lots of lots of claps for you there I don’t know if if you want me to put the links to these things in the chat as well I’ll try do that as well yeah that
Would be really fantastic um thank you yeah and uh I hope we can have you back to report on the next phase of your research as well yeah hopefully that would be really interesting yeah thank you yeah wonderful thank you Louise right uh Louise might have to leave
After this and sharing a few links but I’m um very excited to now welcome our speakers Jill and Tina from stevenage talking about their election campaigning so uh Jill and Tina I’ll have to your your Square isn’t popping up for me so you might just have to say
Something so you pop hello here there you are excellent wonderful right I will let you both hand over and hopefully give us a bit of a background about Steven cycling campaign and your work with it and if I might suggest your be careful you don’t blur your faces out
Because the the background’s yeah yeah we’ll be sharing something in a minute that’s cool brilliant okay well I hand over to both of you now the floor is yours lovely thank you we’ve been sitting here because we um our children are all very much grown up but they have sort of
Grown up together and we’ve been sitting here reminiscing about pushing all around Steven it’s been lovely so yeah we’re Gillan Tina from stevenage we are gonna talk about what we did um really on behalf of Cy UK stevenage um for the local election campaigns last year inspired by something we heard here I’m
Just gonna get Tina introduce herself and what she does for cycling and stevenage okay I’m a cycle instructor and I also manage Steven cycling Hub which is a site for all sorts of things like hire and training so lots of activities in stevenage so and Jill is
One of our amazing I lead I lead lots of bike rides but I’m also the day job is I’m a school teacher and I’ve often been known here saying that we actually have um around 80% of the students at my secondary school walk or cycle to school
So we’ve got really high numbers of of cycling to school and part of the reason why I’m about to share hopefully you can see that screen now about now can we see it yes okay all good I’m assuming we can see I can’t hear anybody at minute can you just conf
You can see that’s good okay good so um mindful that we’ve just had a geographer on the on the line talking to us um that is our map of stevenage and I mean it is a planed Town it is a new town and you just about see the blue lines on it the
Blue lines are our amazing segregated cycleway we we often hear about it’s 48 kilm of segregated cycleway I’m not sure why they always say 48 kmet rather than miles but we hear a lot about it and it makes it a very very special place you can see we’ve got an industrial area
We’ve got lots of parks um this the town was planned to be a sort of series of neighborhoods the idea that you could cycle and you would cycle to work and so on the photo is um a very classic old photo and it shows a roundabout it shows
How we’ve got the cycleways go underneath the roundabout I mean they are just amazing absolutely amazing um and so we want to look after it we want to make it so that our children in in our schools as they grow up they are going to choose to cycle for everyday
Journeys often it is said um that you know if you’ve got the infrastructure in stevenage why isn’t everyone cycling and I think the sort of the agreed reason is that actually they’ve also made driving so easy look at that lovely road it’s very quick to get places and you don’t
Get a lot of congestion so it is easy to just jump in the car so what did we do um this the top picture I mean this I actually cycle here on the way to work you’ve got this lovely lovely segregated cycleway you’ve got the main road and
Then you’ve got the cycleway on two sides of it and just need a bit of background we’re talking about election campaigning and we’ve got two councils so we’ve got harer County Council and we’ve got Steven Bar Council the work we did was with Steven ISB council elections but harer County Council are
Actually the highways Authority and they obviously build the cycleways they look after them we’ve got some active travel England funding comeing into the town and we’ve got a big cycleway project linking to the to the hospital from the main Network SBC steage Bor Council actually maintain but
They they clean them so HCC repair them if there’s a pothole in it you tell HCC if it’s dirty covered in leaves you tell SBC we’ve got um steam B council do the planning and and they look after parking including cycle parking and we’ve got a big town center regeneration project
Going on and how the cycling infrastructure is going to happen there is important to us too there’s a certain amount of tension politically between HCC and SBC they’re led by different parties and it can sometimes be we would like to do more with the cycle ways but
We’ve got to look to HCC and so on pop the green bike there because that’s a sort of almost like an example of this so the green bikes came in with funding the HCC part County Council put them in just sort of post lockdown when we were getting all that funding for improving
Walking and cycling we had these green bike um cycle parking stands so they were put in by hire County Council on the Oldtown High Street but they were subsequently removed and recited by stevenb counselors because lots of people didn’t like the green bicycle stands um and the picture there you can
Just about see the sign that says this Cy this parking is going to be removed that actually was taken just three days after um a local election um it was back in 2022 it was just taken after that at s UK stevenage we we sort of set up as
Part of the cycle advocacy Network UK cycl UK cycle advocacy Network so Tina and I are local reps and as such we’ve got really quite a good relationship with the officers both a County Council Council level so doing something for the local election campaign local elections was hopefully to sort raise our profile
A little bit with the council from Steven Bar Council now this is sort of how we’re set up this is stevenage and the wards so we’ve got 13 Wards with three councilors per Ward we have annual elections each of three years one of those three councilors will be elected
And the fourth year is when the Hara County Council elect are run there of if you like run on allout situation but it’s a third of the council is each year I mean I’m sure most people know but this map is the Ordinance survey election maps and if
You ever want to know what Ward or what division or even what constituency anything is in it’s a really really good map to use because you can just click on it and I’ve just sort of drawn a blue line to show which parts are actually stevenb Council so it’s really really
Lovely we’ve got roxan here because this time last year cam cycle came along and gave presentation to active travel Cafe about what they do for elections and we were just like wow it’s absolutely incredible what they do please go and have a look on their website I’ve just
Screenshot this from something um I took yesterday and we just thought that’s absolutely incredible what they’re doing it cross lots and lots of Cambridge here what can we do we can’t do anything like that but could we take some of if you like the themes of what they’ve done and
Just do something anything just on a a smaller scale so with that inspiration we came up with just three questions bearing in mind what sten bar counsel actually can affect what those counselors can do so this is on our site the UK stevenage website we’ve got if
You like a platform we could already share things with so these are the questions we came up with we wanted to emphasize to these counselors that we were talking about cycling as everyday Journeys um not as a sport not just as a sport just as Leisure and not just as a
Sort of a Heritage thing we’ve got this amazing cycle we infrastructure but it needs to be fit for use into our 21st century so we wanted to just we wanted to say how can we improve the number of Journeys that are made and we wanted to
Flag up that we’ve got just over 20% of households don’t have a car so this was using the Census Data they have put in some cycle hangers but even of now I think there’s only three or four um since 2021 so again we wanted to
Flag up that they exist but s of say how are we actually going to push these out how are we going to take account of cycle parking because we know with our work and Tina’s work the cycling Hub with beginner cyclists actually having somewhere to keep bike safe at home is
Important and then really just flagging up the fact that we are the planning Authority although we had this wonderful cycle infrastructure built when the town was planned originally things have happened in sort of 70s and 80s a big Supermarket in Town Center was plunked absolutely on top of a key North South
Route the car park we’re lose so things are broken there are links that don’t exist so a couple of retail Parks have been built and they haven’t even got so much as a dropped curve to get to them and then this this idea that we need
Parking we need when a when a new Supermarket is built is there going to be cycle parking for it and when residential accommodation is built have they thought about people actually having somewhere to store their bikes the first question we asked and we mentioned the census data we actually
Used that as maybe perhaps educating a little bit and saying to some of these candidates did you actually know and we sent them a link to this this idea that well it’s not all car Centric we got 20 we got 20% across the whole of stevenage
That don’t have C cars or Vans and then the Oldtown I think I’ve used there on that little link 44% and so you know don’t make this assumption that everybody’s got a car and it was worth just pointing them in their Direction this data this was bang up to date this time last
Year and again it’s this idea that cycling is a way of getting around every day so without the amazing sort of website technology that camsite produce which is absolutely stunning we just went back to old fashioned post and we sent them a letter so this was sent
Through the post with stamps to because we could get the addresses of the agents of the election campaigns and we sent it through to them and we put on the bottom of it that we would send we’ve also sent to anything that was public the political parties if we could find they
Had a website and there appeared to be a chair or someone like that a sort of a link to their political party headquarters we would actually send it to that we made it clear that you know please just drop us an email and we will be able to we’ll send you an electronic
Copy of this with all the links and so on and we did make sure we had a very generic email address we didn’t use either of our personal email addresses we used a generic cycl UK Steven n email address for it all we’ve got dates in
That letter so we sent the letter on the 11th of April and we asked for everything to be in on the 25th of April and that was one of the things we took from what we heard from cam cycle we were s thinking okay when do we time it
Um and we made it very clear that we were going to publish what they said so you know whatever they said we weren’t going to change it or edit it in any way way we were going to publish it and again that was something we picked up
Here last year as far as the choosing of the dates I’ve just got this year’s dates and this is sort of dictating the timing we will use this year so the nominations actually get published on the 8th of April so that’s when we’ll have access to who is actually standing
Which par is are standing in which Ward and who the agents are with their addresses and we want to try and get it turned round so we are getting if you like what we’ve got published around about time the postal votes come out because in stevenage we will have um
Exceptionally High we’ve got really high postal vote percentage historically it dates from sometime I think it’s a couple of decades ago where we actually in the town piloted everyone having a postal vote we did at least one local election where you couldn’t vote in person everyone had a postal vote so
That’s why it’s just sort of a little bit of a quirk with here so if they’ve got to apply for their postal votes by 17th of April we’d be looking for sort of 20s something we’ll probably aim for about the 24th again so we’re giving people a good S three weeks to respond
And then when they respond we’ve just published it on the website so that’s just a one of the questions so this was the third question and then obviously liberal Democrats and underneath we had other um the other parties there were a couple of Independents so we made sure
That we put them on there um and as I say we took Camp Cycle’s advice and we did replies as received and we we published that ized it we kept our members informed so we’ve got email to go out to the site from UK members locally and we actually had our AGM at
About the same time so we mentioned to people then that we were doing it um so we did something and we got those answers back and I think those answers I’m not convinced it will necessarily change the way somebody voted but we certainly got the councilors to think
And because we did something last year we can do now do something similar maybe a bit different this year so final slide is literally what we’re thinking at the moment now for 2024 we’ve got um new boundaries are have happened in the town so as a result we’ve got this really really unique
Situation where every single one of the 39 seats are being contested so it’s not like just one of the three in a ward it’s all three not a single counselor at the moment is guaranteed to be a counselor in whatever it is two months time um every single one has been
Contested so it’s it’s quite a unique situation we’re going to this year’s questions we’ve got to work them out and we’re going to use the answers we received last year so we can quote them we can say well you said this last year what are you what are you saying this
Year um we are going to we’re thinking about and again this was something that we noted cam cycle P to do really really well if we can we may um refer to specific issues in specific Wards and even if it’s like mentioning them to every everybody this happened in this W
And to see if we can try and get replies that are coming back not so much generic replies from the whole um to representing all of the counselors all of the candidates we’ve got a cycle High scheme due to come in literally in the next few months and that’s going to go
Across the town so we want to flag up to the council candidates that that’s happening because they’re going to be asked to have in their Wards placees these cycle hire bikes to actually be put and we just we’re not convinced that they necessarily all know the implic of
That regarding you know people are going to want to put things in their shopping centers and so on um and then we want to also do a little bit more to promote um the idea that active travel is part of their climate change strategy they’ve just published their CL a new climate
Change strategy and we want to just make the link with that um more publicity we’ll try and do we’ve got a bit more Tech capability I mean the website was literally me done on the day off and I’m you know I just did my best but we’ve
Got somebody who will be a little bit more able on that um so what we’re going to do but it’s really just coming back to this idea that this start we started with something and it was because we were inspired to do just something anything because of what we saw here so
It’s thank you to cycle and thank you to active travel ca for actually getting us started on something that is so brilliant thank you so much Jill and Tina you have absolutely made my day um that you know that we’ve been able to help another campaign group and we always say that
What cam cycle does does have National influence and helps other campaign groups so I’m I’m really chuffed and I think you’re going to have to come and give this presentation to my team um worth it because we we’ve started work on our questions last week so yeah
Raring to go anyway i’ I’ve wrote lots of notes and have lots of comments but I should really hand over the floor to everybody else um so let’s see what questions we’ve got uh coming in no still they’re still coming in so I will um oh no we’ve got Mark and then Robin
Um in person short questions please because we’ve not got a huge amount of time well I just wanted to just comment on the work we be doing with um Tina and Jill in hartfordshire well not directly with them but with hartfordshire but I just wanted to get their reaction to the
The issue that I raised we Harrier have been using sort of market research people to promote py and I think they were quite shocked when we said when we reacted negatively to their phrase We want to turn everyone in in stage into cyclists and we said that
Was a very poor use of the phrase I think Tina was and I just wanted to do your your take on that that experience because they they they’re coming at it from the right direction but they’re not necessar they don’t quite know what they’re doing no it’s the wrong
Terminology to use you don’t want to turn people into cyclist you want them to actually use a bike to get about and I think that’s the difference yeah BR quick question Robin yeah so um we uh the last County elections we did a quite large and complicated um
Questionnaire of this kind of ilk and got it it was a it was a kind of yes no questionnaire so we got lots of data and we were able to say 67% of elected councilors support active travel on these policies which was really quite powerful this year
We’ve got a city Council election so they they don’t specifically um do transport but ltns would be an issue but we’re thinking we might not do it because it would only raise antagonism levels so I’m just wondering if you’ve thought about any issues you might not want to raise
Versus issues you do want to raise I knowe you put climate on there which might actually be a good angle just to highlight the fact it is an it is a linked issue I think that because Sten BR council is quite Limited in what it does um with regard things that will actually
Affect cycling I think if we actually want to flag up if they’re doing some of the silly things so when they put in in planning I mean they were putting in um cycle parking at residential um HMO where you had to lift your cycle you had to it was vertical cycle parking you
Have to lift it up and hang it up we’ve got some station cycle parking that is not particularly easy to use so but we have worked really well with the officers and the officers have actually made some really been really good about all of this so it’s just flagging up and
Helping some of the counselors know about it because they obviously not everybody Cycles but we’ve got this sort of it’s almost an alternative town because the cycleways are underneath the the roads people glance at them and think there’s nobody on them but as we all know it just means there’s not queue
It’s not queue of traffic but it it’s sort of like an alternative town and just we need to try and invite them into and tell them a little bit more about it and say that it is a bit crazy when we get to a new you know a new car park or
Something and we have to go through it and it’s just sort of raising awareness because a lot of it is done from the perspective of cycling as a Leisure activity and we just need to turn it into know I actually want to go there
Because I want to go there by bike and I need to get from A to B I’ve Just Seen A comment there from someone saying that they’d love to come and see the network we would love to come and show you around it’s well worth a visit
Brilant I I was going to ask the same too yeah uh we have a question about funding have you had any funding to to support your work on on this election survey not really but I cycling UK um we are we have our website is sits on a
Little bit of the cycling UK website so we haven’t got our own you know we we’ve got that so I suppose we’ve got the support of Cy UK and obviously we’re part the local group so if we did need anything sort of funding there is something there’s a little bit of money
Within our local group I have to hold my hand up and say that I’m the chair of it so I do have a bit of a bit of a hint there we some some stamps or whatever if we needed anything but otherwise it’s as so much things we do it voluntarily yeah
And you’ll find um you won’t need to stamp so much once you’ve got the reputation about this survey um the parties will be contacting you um about it rather than contacting them we did make some stamps that we actually stick on envelopes that actually say delivered by bicycle and
Stevenage brilliant brilliant um a question about impact um because I imagine you as the candidates discover this is influencing voting decisions that will you know increase their interest in in the survey um so how are you measuring any impact do you are you able to tell how many people have
Clicked on it perhaps surveying your members and asking if they’ve been influenced by the survey anything like do that we haven’t done that that’s I think we should write that one down as a thing we can do thank you because we can do that might very
Last minute last year so as we saw how many people um looked at the Facebook stuff that we put out about it as well um and I think that it we last year and it’s it’s you know one of the other messages that we St we’ve done it before
So because it’s existed before we can refer back to it we wrote to you last year and you said this and I think it’s that idea just start and do something now we might see a little bit more impact this year because we can refer
Back to it and say well look you said this but you didn’t do it or you did do it we can refer to it yeah brilliant um and I I’m sorry I missed it but how many candidates were in the mix for you last year would have
Been around about well we had so it’s 13 Wards and they generally had three or four so you’re looking about 40 but crucially we didn’t get replies from Individual candidates we got replies from each party so each party so we had you know four main parties maybe and then we had
An independent independent gave some really good detailed replies on our website and then we had Tusk again they were standing in some places so we generally got a reply to each question from the party um and I think it was um two of the two of the independ or
The smaller parties sent us a sort of a reply that answered everything and we sort of we we reflected that on the website so really it’s all still on the website if anybody’s interested just go and have a look at St s UK stevenage and then um our election campaigning stuff
And it’s all literally still sitting there from last year and was that what you wanted just responses from the parties or no you so you’re going for each of the candidates and that’s really this year I think we’re if we if we make it a little bit more Ward specific it’s
Going to force it and after all you’re not going to be targeting it at a particular individual this year because of course each party is going to probably aspire to have three candidates in each Ward because it’s all out and so there are three Council positions going
In each Ward because of this incredibly unique situation we’ve got this year yeah we had it the other year so I just I just wish you all the best in the the workload and do shout out if we can be helpful at all what can’t C cycle thank
You definitely right um I think that that is it for our questions H I’m really sorry but you mentioned in the chat that’s not a relevant question to the subject today um but um I think some people have chipped in in the in the chat to respond to that that question um
So I’m going to to wrap us all up and say a huge thank you to Louise for that wonderful presentation on on um Mom walking moms and a really big thank you to Jill and Tina and I look forward to next year when we have another campaign
Come and say how you’ve inspired them uh to take on an election survey um so I I I’m really sure that um you’ve really inspired someone else to take that on now next week um we have got our regular spot with ranty Highwayman on The Good the Bad and the interesting of active
Travel infrastructure and we’ve got a little bit of a to be determined slot as well and I’m sure keep an eye on your email newslet letters and we’ll tell you who will be joining us next week uh but other than that thank you everyone for joining us today and I wish you all
Happy cycling and happy election campaigning thank you bye everyone