Tom Fyans, CEO of London Cycling Campaign (LCC) talks to Sam Collard, Head of cycling at Osbornes Law.
So have you found that there’s much difference on a on a sort of local level between the different London burs in terms of their attitude to cycling and the development of cycling? Yeah, it’s a great question. It’s it’s one of the big challenges we’ve got because in some boras like for example Hackne or Camden Islington there’s some really good infrastructure and there’s been years of cycling campaigning gone into that area to really improve and you see that through the cycling rates so more people cycling in those bors than in any other bors in London. we’ve got more members in those and it’s really great to see. On the other end of the spectrum, you’ve got kind of Kensington and Chelsea and Tower Hamlets as two examples of sort of pantomime villains if you like in cycling because neither of those councils are really taking well they’re not only not taking cycling seriously but they’re not they’re actively kind of stopping um cycling infrastructure going in and opposing it. So there’s very little political will there yet. you know, there’s some very high need in those bors to cycle uh for different reasons. So, London, one of the challenges is London is a real patchwork of of quality when it comes to cycling. And what we’re trying to do at LCC is try and sort of even even that out a bit to say wherever you are in London, you should be able to have that choice to cycle to for all the benefits that you get for your health and well-being. And at the moment, that that’s a bit patchwork and a bit of a postcode lottery. Our vision really as LCC is to have a kind of one London experience of cycling. So particularly in the outer borers, it’s harder. It’s a different you know different types of infrastructure are going to be needed. Sometimes different solutions to central and inner London. But what we want to see is more connected cycle networks there where families and and you know young young children can get to school can cycle to their town centers and that means sort of a network that crosses over the borers rather than going down into the center of London and back out again which is where we’ve got a lot of the the good infrastructure now. So yeah, it’s going to be a challenge and and in those boras you you’ve got a much broader diversity of people who need and want to cycle. Um, so that’s kind of what what where we want to go and you know 10 years should be long enough to do it.