00:01:00 – News from around and about
00:03:25 – Roxanne de Beaux from Velocity in Ghent
00:10:50 – Roger Geffen from Low Traffic Choices on their new Transport Choices Challenge
00:18:13 – Ralph Smyth, Transport Action Network, on the legal challenge to the government’s 2023 cut to the Active Travel budget
00:30:30 – Sarah McMonagle, Cycling UK, on their new strategy
brilliant so tonight on act travel Cafe we’ve got a few things lined up we’re going to start with the news Round Up um uh if anybody’s got any news from across the UK and Europe to share we’ve already got hands in the air which is exciting so stick your hand up and I’ll come around and get everybody to share their news um then we’ve got Ralph Smith I haven’t seen him yet but I will come to you Ralph in a moment from the uh transport Action Network it should be here somewhere to give us an update on um their court case uh against the government on cutting active travel um funding oh good you there I could see you in the chat which is excellent and then our main speaker tonight is um Sarah mcle from cycling UK who’s their director of uh external Affairs uh and we’re really excited to hear from Sarah in a bit so that’s the plan this evening um we’ve only got one main speaker so I think we should fingers crossed be all done by six but let’s see how we get on so should we start by getting some new roundups um Andrew in Sterling should we come to you first some good news uh Sterling Council have announced they going to start enforcing the um Scottish legislation on pavement parking and drop curb parking uh as from the 15th of July uh joining uh Glasgow Edinburgh and Dundee councils who’ve already started enforcement cool that’s excellent bit of good news just to kick us off everybody’s smiling I can see all the windows people smiling happy people people excellent um Ruth over to you thanks Andrew well I’m afraid mine would be good news in again look out for my son jack because he’s there as well okay um yes no uh very disturbing for me b toy um the MP took it upon herself to kind of take on people’s concerns about shed use walking and cycling along the river um and I know that people do cycle too fast along the river um but the interventions that have gone in are really really very very nasty rumble strips which is a line of cobbles then a bit of gravel then a line of cobbles then a bit of gravel then a line of cobbles which if you’re on any kind of bike you know disability bike or whatever is incredibly uncomfortable um but the parallel Road where people do get killed maned and injured there is no such intervention at all and baty bridge I don’t know if Simon Monk Is on here but put something on one of the groups I’m on that there was work meant to be at baty Bridge the North End where people have been killed and injured uh there is no right of way on any phase of the lights for walking or cycling so it seems that if pedestrians say I might be hit by a cyclist suddenly something’s done and money’s put in um and it’s not really looked at very nicely but when we are killed and injured on the roads we don’t get any interventions at all and it’s harping so I’m sorry to be negative to start today but um I’m actually really angry about it because I did it yesterday and it was horrible thank you that’s thanks Ruth know that’s more than fair enough you’re right to be angry and it’s a safe space so you can share as well um right let’s go move on from Ruth to roxan in Gent who’s on the move roxan over to you hi Steve can you hear me okay yes we can fantastic well if you look behind me huge indoor cycle parking and that’s just some of the bikes of the 1,650 plus people that are here at B city today um I’m not sure how much time I have spontaneously but who would like to know um what I’ve been up to the last few days go so excellent well I started this adventure uh by taking the ferry um from harit to um the hook of Holland uh 90 kilm cycle ride up the coast um and then popped across to Amsterdam for two days for the planning the cycling City Reunion with the urban cycling Institute uh so some of the people on this call probably know um have heard about um the fat Professor or Markel to bruml um and many of us have been lucky to study with him on a summer school in Amsterdam and because so many of us were coming to Europe for V City this year we had a little reunion there um to see what’s been happening in Amsterdam and to challenge our thinking and um the narratives that we um use when I’m trying to understand mobility and together over the two days we had a lot of fun a lot of bike riding but we’ve also collaborated on a Manifesto um which will be coming soon we shall publish it so I will bring that active travel Cafe when that’s done um I’ve then spent some time in Rotterdam where I uh suffered a collision with a motor scooter my bike and I are a little worse for Weare but otherwise quite quite fine um and then took the train to antp and then yesterday I cycled from antp to gent another 90 kilometers or so on just amazing cycling infrastructure um and I’m just so envious that they have it now Bellow City so it’s day one today uh and this morning we arrived in this huge Warehouse type place and hidden within it is a v drone uh so the main area for our our conference was in a V Drome and we started with a cycling race around that V Drome uh we then had our opening plener of course we were welcomed by uh the various people from G including the deputy mayor philli who I’m sure many of us heard speak at Bow City the other year uh last year um and then we had a great welcome from Janette Sadi Khan uh who was the head of Transport or or active transport for New York uh so she’s the author of the book street fight and her talk was just so inspiring because she basically did a Roundup of all the exciting big things that have been happening around the world uh and genuinely I was just so almost surprised that there’s actually so much good stuff going on uh in so so many places and and it started to give me a sense of velocity not just velocity that hang on we’re all inspiring each other and this stuff might just actually be speeding up um and and that’s in the global North the global South all continents good stuff is happening um after that uh I was a little nervous because I actually presented this morning um so I gave a talk called local voices um which was about you know the role that the advocacy organization plays between you know those decision makers the Consultants developers uh and local people and how we sort of communic provide a conjur for communication between um those two stakeholder groups uh and I was really quite nervous because I was sharing um the the panel stage with Charlotte Guth from Paris and I heard her speak when I was in Amsterdam and let me tell you we need to get her to come and talk to active travel Cafe because what is going on in Paris is just even more than I knew or heard of and their approach is phenomenal so um I’m hoping to pop down to Paris while I’m over in Europe too uh we had more sessions uh I attended one just to really get stuck into what’s going on in Flanders and I had lots of questions of after my cycle trip yesterday I really wanted to understand more about what I had seen in particular how many oh hello Emily from New Zealand say hello to all my friends in England only about 60 of us hi everyone anyway um and just the sheer number of speed pedal X that we’re seeing here and apparently uh Flanders has got 40% of the global um pedc market so we need to keep an eye on what they’re doing here so that if someone does decide to bring in new legislation in the UK about increasing the speeds of ebikes well Flanders uh and Belgium are ahead of the curve with us on how they’re managing uh that conflict that might arise from different speeds uh and then this afternoon we had our final plenary which had um the representatives from Italy rmany which is where Belo City will be in 2026 and Gans which is where it will be next year and of course we learned more about gent we also heard from Texas and Singapore about the challenges and opportunities they are facing that is my day and I’m now ready to have my my drinks uh but if anyone’s got any quick questions happy to answer them I hope I didn’t r on too much brilliant Roxy that was an amazing little caner through well it’s just very exciting usually it’s Ruth that makes us feel hugely jealous about cycling around lovely infrastructure but you’ve pulled it off um that was amazing so well just a quick question from me Roxy would that Manifesto you when do you think you’ll be able to present that back to us I’m sure all of us would love to hear about it uh I not quite sure I’ve been told ASAP so basically the the manifesto was created with um about 60 of us again from all over the world from all different walks of life so Advocates Engineers officials um and we really took on quite a unique process of how we collaborated on that so I think there’s something interesting to talk about in how we got to it as well as what’s in it but we’ve now handed that over to the UCI to sort of get into some kind of format um so I’m hoping within a month or so um we’ll see maybe I could even get someone from the UCI to to come and present because I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing from me and if it does make you feel better I can say we’ve just had really miserable weather here in the last two weeks and I can’t tell you much about the infrastructure of gent because it’s bucketing down out there um but tomorrow the sun will start shining and we have a bike parade bike party to to have um so hopefully we’ll see a little bit more of that circulation plan I know we’re all reallying to to learn more about brilliant thanks Roxy thanks for letting us know it’s raining that makes us all feel a tiny bit better and it wasn’t raining yesterday though 90 kilm and just perfect cycle touring weather perfect cycling infrastructure uh so I’m glad the day the days worked out well for me there brilant anyway I’ll pop off now and and see you all when I get back take care we’ll see you soon bye right next up after that top that Roger we’re over to you right thank you well uh yes definitely jealous um yeah wow awesome that sounds so good um so bit of news from low traffic future Alliance we have today launched what we’re calling a transport choices Charter it’s for local author sorry challenge Lo we CH we changed the name Midway through local uh transport choices challenge um it’s uh a challenge both to local authorities to sign up their their ambition to reduce Road uh motor motor vehicle motor vehicle use car dependence for all the reasons you’re well aware of it’s also to some extent a CH challenge to local campaign groups which is why I’m here letting you know about it to persuade your local authorities to sign up um we’ve we did a little we did a little survey earlier this year of the local authorities to find out where they’ve all got to with their local transport plans how ambitious are they being and how far have they got towards adopting their local transport plans this is based on the fact that the outgoing government asked the local authorities to all draw up new local transport plans three years ago when they produced that transport decarbonization plan we thought this is great they’re they’re they’re telling local authorities that good local transport plans if they want their money they need to have a good walking and cycling uh plan a good bus service improvement plan and these things called quantifiable carbon reduction targets we thought great let’s breath people to influence those um so we ran a series of workshops last year and then of course the plan for drivers came along and the government never actually released the guidance to the local authorities on what they should put in their local transport plans or how they should set these Quantified carbon reductions so we produced our own version the guidance and that’s available online and then we started thinking and lower authorities when they found out we produce some guidance when the government hadn’t they were all delighted so uh hopefully it’s kind of been been used but then we thought well where have they all got to so we did this little survey and we found the short answer is that most of them have started reviewing their local transport plans but very few of not very many of them have got as far as Consulting let alone let alone finalizing their local transport plans about 2third of them have started but have not consulted yet so in other words for most local authorities outside in England outside London it’s all to play for um so we produced that’s the whole point of the challenge is we thought well there are four authorities who have either consulted on or finalized a local transport plan who we identified as having come up with some really good practice in setting ambitious targets so transport for the West Midlands want to reduce car distance travel by 35% by 2030 good challenging stuff Oxfordshire a AAR County not purely Urban uh want to reduce car trips by 25% by 2030 and then by 33% by 2040 reading want to reduce car use from 25% of trips at the moment that’s in or into Reading Town Center they want to reduce from 25% to 10% by 2040 and York want to reduce car mileage by 20% by 2030 so some good examples for all those other 65% who haven’t yet consulted on uh to follow so that’s why I produced this um this challenge to say come on all the other local authorities follow the lead of those four and as I say it’s partly a challenge to you the local campaigners to see if you can persuade your local Authority sign up we’ve included not just signing up at U bronze silver or gold level recog we uh we we’ve we’ve said bronze silver or gold level recognizing that firstly it’s easier for a greater Manchester a large city to sign up to kind of go for gold than for a you know Lincolnshire or wherever rural County and secondly no none of the local authorities can be fully ambitious until they know um what kind of funding they’re going to be getting from whatever new government comes so to some extent we’re kind of trying to get the local authorities declaring their level of ambition and we’re gladly welcome particularly sha counties you sign up a bronze as a statement that they want to get to gold or silver or gold as soon as they know where they stand with national government in the meantime if local campaigners from particularly the sh counties can get your county councils signing up at Broad BR that’ be brilliant bear in mind that every sh County all the county councils the non Metropolitan councils in England all have full elections next May so that too is part of the game plan so um I will ping a link to where the web web address where you can find out about this uh do please s um you know indicate your interest in getting your local authorities signed up obviously they can’t sign up it they can’t sign up just now because it’s uh you know pre-election uh pre-election period when local authorities can’t say anything but it is better transport week which is why we decided to go ahead and launch it this week anyway so it’s part of better of Transport week it’s out there now and I’ll just thanks Roger um quick question Roger the um because that sounds excellent um it sounds to me like this is something we could return to as a full presentation maybe post selection would that be okay with you that would be I’d be more than happy to do that and then discuss well how can you how can you get your l author signed up and all the rest of it sounds like we should do that so that would be excellent thanks Roger okay we’re going to go speedy through Amy and H so Amy over to you and then we’re over to our uh R Smith first and then over to Sarah so if we could keep it short Amy sorry sure no it’s a quick shout out to anyone in h Manchester Steve um it’s you know you’re uh there’s a consultation into Vision zero strategy and we were really disappointed by it thought it was a real missed opportunity so we’ve done a Blog on it and highlights our concerns uh con closes um next week and we’re just urging anybody who travels in Manchester to read it it’s short only 10 pages and to note the concerns we’ve raised thank you thanks Amy and if you popped a link to that in the chat brilliant stuff I’m make sure we all read it that’s lovely thank you um H to you yeah I’ve just to catch on that on one thing but the I my SC I go to the local Quaker climate Action Group and I don’t know if there’s any climate action groups run by the friends or Quakers anywhere else in the UK they seem to be uh but we discovered that um there’s a climate action funding for areas in Scotland um REM for year haven’t apparently spent there so we were desperately trying to figure out how we can spend some of it and I wondered whether Andrew knew of anything else or anybody else news climate action hubs getting people to use sustainable transport and rather like um climate action stra and they actually run their own bus service and run their own bike hire and carire thank well if anybody does have um a lead on that for you let’s get them to pop it in the chat um and let you help help spend some money on that real action on the ground brilliant thanks H well that’s in uh our UK round over with so before we come to you Sarah we’re going to get a quick update from ra Smith from the um transport Action Network on how their court case has gone so ra over to you you’re on mute ra that should work now can you hear me just trying to share my screen um can you see my screen yes we can excellent all right so I’ve put this as uh still smiling for those that don’t know um unfortunately we lost our case um but I want to give you a quick update as to what happened and what’s next so just as to kind of um warm things up a bit I’ve got a quick question a little multiple choice for you all if you had to cut as part of an efficiency in Savings review that was about prioritizing money away from lower value and lower priority programs which of these three options would you cut and please put a letter a b or c in the chat so the first one is the kind of the social benefits practical and popular save money on health the second is on things that important to the environment and then the third is the kind of you know the economic benefits on the best financial Returns on investment what would you uh cut I can see Gary says none of the above Tim has said c on the best returns H has gone for the green green vote another C no one no one wants the social benefits and health benefits no obviously not well I think any any final cause um well it’s actually a trick question because the treasury and it was a treasury it turned out decided to cut the the measures that actually were good for all these three in other words active travel because just a year and a few months actually nine months before the government had published the cycling walk investment strategy the second one that had that explained why active travel was good for all these three different things and our case revealed finally that the Department of Transport wanted to protect active travel funding but that the treasury intervened at the very last minute literally hours before the spending review the treasury came in and said right we don’t like this active travel it’s important enough you’ve got to cuss it and active travel faced the biggest cuts of any uh part of the transport budget we still don’t know how much it was the officials or the politicians because there were a lot of redactions but it was the treasury that cut active travel and we got our judgment about 10 days ago and there are a few different uh key things I want to share with you very briefly so one of the most important reasons we thought for the case was to give stability to the funding for active travel you remember that in 2015 parliament passed the infrastructure act and you know the certainty and stability of funding for active travel was written into law as being really important now on the screen you can see what the uh judge said basically he reinterpreted what was written by Parliament adding the word intent Ed so you know making it conditional vague and that meant that the government was justified in cutting funding because it was never a promise it was just an aspiration um we said well you know if if you want to change the funding you’ve actually got to use what’s called A variation procedure a bit of the law that says if you want to vary the amount of money you’ve got to step back and make sure you’ve got enough money for the objectives you want now the judge said that wasn’t relevant that would only be relevant and you can see here the bottom where for example the government might want to you know remove bike lanes and spend the money on electric car charging now the Ron here is basically that’s what’s happened the government has cut funding for bicycles and walking and uh is protecting the money for for electric cars so feels like a bit of an injust jce there another thing and really important part of the statutory scheme is that you’re supposed to decide whether you’ve got enough money to meet objectives for example increasing the number of uh walking and cycling and walking to school Journeys now the department for transport even said you know because the treasury imposed these cuts at the last minute we’re working through the implication but the judge decided it’s unreal to say the secretary of state did not take into account the likely effect of the cut this this I struggle with to be honest because as I said the the evidence was that the officials hadn’t had time to work it out now there’s lots of information we’re going to try and disclose it as you can see from the bottom of the screen this was page 381 of a very large legal B so we’re just trying to um get some of this taken out into a more user friendly format um but this this shows some of the limited information um given to ministers you know obviously Lots about the benefits um of active travel but not really what would happen if you cut it cut the funding by 2/3 um other parts of the case were around uh you know the benefits for air quality climate now as you saw from the slide near the start the government said that action travel was important to cut pollution um and to cut carbon emissions but the judge decided because uh defer and DFT hadn’t worked out a Quantified relationship between active Shel po projects and particular levels they didn’t need to consider it now this is nuts because the government’s own research says that you need to cut driving to cut particulates because so much comes from break tar and roadware now rather than Road rather than exhausts and on climate the judge said there was a rational level of consideration didn’t need to think anymore um unfortunately for us uh but also for the government uh the friends of the earth Cent Earth legal decision came out just days after our case saying that the government’s carbon plan was legally inadequate now this does weth think give us strong grounds for an appeal on that ground so was it all worth it well we Shone light on the spending processes we got a huge amount of information out and as we Face the toughest spending review in Generations like later this year the new government this is really useful information to know how the processes work we got a uh report published uh that’ve been hidden away by officials since 2020 um showing the government knew all along they weren’t investing enough in active travel we also slowed down the plan for drivers because officials were focused on fighting the court case and also able to tell ministers that if they did anything more anything worse they’d face more legal challenges and I think most importantly of all we raised awareness about the need to focus on governance rather than simply asking for more money because as we’ve seen the government can very easily take money away but if you have governance structures um that can be really important in making sure there’s the evidence there uh to show that you you can’t simply take away funding without scuppering other targets like climate and air quality now here’s a quick table from the report that we uncovered I know a report that Roger geffin who’s on the call was very keen to get out you know across all the different scenarios it showed that much more needed to be invested in Walking cycling than the government was investing already now the government ministers were saying we’re investing a record amount um but they knew all along it wasn’t enough so wrapping up now um so I’m trying to keep this 10 minutes um we’ve got three options where to go next we can simply sit back and hope the next government will be more ambitious um to be honest that’s not something I’m I’m getting a strong feel from from the manifestos that they’re really keen on active travel we could try to seek a legal Amendment to the infrastructure act but there’s a risk that active travel isn’t a priority and and any Amendment comes too late or we could try to appeal the Judgment um that gives us keeps a foot in the door it puts active travel to the top of the Inay and it highlights the continuing Injustice of active travel cuts so what next well really important to one everyone is the the current cycling and walking investment strategy runs out in March so the government has a legal duty to publish a new strategy by then but actually local transport authorities ltas they need funding certainty much sooner than that we also need consultation if not co-production with local transport authorities because with devolution shifting more power not necessarily more funding to them um they need to have a much more of a role note that there was no consultation for the second CS there was for the first there’s also supposed to be uh a progress report to Parliament about you know how much money was actually spent on active travel um it’s unclear when this will come out especially with an election and whether it will be in time or whether it will simply come out after the next seus is published that would be too late there are important interactions with the new carbon plan that the other court case says the government has to publish by May um and also plans to cut pollution but the risk here is that a spending review in the Autumn is the tail that Wags the dog you know there’s not enough money for ACT to travel and therefore it can’t be seen as a solution next year on onwards for climate and environment finally there is a simplification of funding streams at the moment there’s about 30 different ring fenced funds for local authorities that’s a bit too much as the money shrinks but the alternative of Simply a single funding pot could mean that our active travel is squeezed even more so the next steps we would need to raise funding pretty quickly to go to the court of appeal we’re going to try to publish uh papers um from the court case so you can see what was revealed and we also want to engage with the next government for credible ambition a credible funding and decent governance thank you very much that is a rush through attempt and I hope um that made sense if not put something in the chat thank you great thanks R I really appreciate that really do um and thanks for the update we’ll make sure we share your update on the website as well obviously so people can have a look could I ask if possible if anybody’s got any questions if they could share them in the chat for RA are you able to stay around ra yeah I can stay till about 52 another 20 minutes excellent that’s lovely back Steve no I had a moment there where I had double I had myself twice on screen which is always scary and horrible so I’m glad that’s over thanks ra that’s amazing and well done on all that Absolut herculan effort Sarah I’m really sorry we’ve run over by about five five six minutes so we’re late coming to you do apologize but you’re our second speaker from gent it’s the Gent Edition hi everyone um I can’t actually believe this is my first active travel Cafe but um it was actually one of our trustees Robin Tucker who suggested I come along and um talk to you guys about our new strategy so yeah thanks for having me and I hope to come to more of these because they sound really really useful and I’ve already learned a lot in the last half hour so yeah hopefully you’ll see more of me in future weeks um let me just share my screen I’ve got a PowerPoint not to kill you with slides but there aren’t too many I’m going to just talk them through for about um 10 15 minutes and share a video just to make it a bit more exciting as well so bear with can you see the slides yeah we got those thanks great lovely thank you um so yeah just to introduce myself very quickly I am director of external Affairs at cycling UK and I’ve been at the charity for just over a year year now um which has gone very very quickly that’s quite scary um so my department leads on campaigns policy and public affairs and marketing and communication so all the kind of external stuff squished together in one directorate um the idea being that hopefully that makes us it as as joined up as possible um before that I was a Countryside charity in the environmental sector called CPR and before that I was in the construction industry so I have done a bit of sector hopping but you’d be surprised how much of um a kind of policy golden thread runs through those sorts of different sectors and leads you kind of neatly into transport and active travel um and I’m assuming most of you know plenty about cycling UK but just in case there’s anyone on the call that doesn’t know much about our organization um we’ve been around for 146 years so a lot longer than my one year at the charity and we’ve got 71 ,000 members that would be well into the kind of 100,000 plus including supporters but we’ve got 71,000 members which makes us one of the top 100 membership organizations in the UK which I think we should shout about a lot more because that’s that’s pretty amazing and our membership is holding really strong whereas other membership organizations I think are um struggling a little bit and seeing a slight decline so I think that’s really positive um and we’re particularly known for our campaigning and our Behavior change program work so lots of Grassroots work where we um yeah work with communities facilitate communities to get more people on a bike um and I’ve been asked to kind of talk us through talk you through um our new strategy today so I’ve got a slim down version of this presentation so there’s plenty of time for questions as well um but just a very quickly recap on why a new strategy well one reason is that the last one timed out so that took us to 2023 but we did really want to take a proper look at the kind of scope and ambition of the the strategy as well and making sure that we were pushing in the right direction and concentrating on the right things and I guess we did ask ourselves some difficult questions when we came to the strategy review because although as an organization we’ve had lots of success and I could rattle through loads of them but one that really does bring to mind is the very concrete changes that we and lots of people on this call helped secure around the highway code for example but there’s lots more besides um but despite that success as a campaigning body in terms of Shifting the dial in the kind of um big picture sense cycling numbers haven’t increased um and also you know it’s been quite depressing in the last couple of years seeing um this sort of cross party consensus on cycling it felt like it existed for a while sort of start to e away and it really is kind of smack in the middle of some very um tricky kind of culture wars which is doing nothing for our cause so yeah we have seen the government like you we were just being talking about rode back on their funding commitments their their funding commitments that were already inadequate they they rode back on them further cutting the budget last year by 23ds and yeah the whole kind of external environment in terms of where we operate feels quite different at the moment obviously um the economic situation is very very challenging we’ve got a cost of living crisis and the climate change um emergency is very much um being felt so there’s lots of stuff happening internally and externally that made made us feel and reflect that we needed to take quite a bold new approach to our um next five to 10 year strategy just a quick word on kind of how we got there so as you would expect we did lots and lots and lots of consultation because the things are really important and not to be rushed so we actually started the process 18 months ago well before I even started at cycling UK um so there was a good kind of 18month period between conversations kicking off initially and then the strategy being launched which was last week um so it was a process that was led by trustees but very much supported by um an agency called Lucent which is a strategy agency that were really really helpful in terms of helping guide us through the process um yeah we kind of chopped our key stakeholders into particular groups staff was a very important one for us so we wanted to really carefully listen to the views of Staff likewise members and supporters but we also went out and spoke to um a lot of external partners and stakeholders so I’m sure some of you on the call were involved in this but we had um interviews and surveys and workshops with stakeholders across the UK including Scotland Wales and Northern Ireland to make sure that we were really hearing your feedback about the role cycling UK is playing and could play in the future and eventually the strategy was approved by trustees in October last year and since that time we’ve been preparing for the launch and if I can get this working I would like to share this video with you hear [Music] that see if the technology doesn’t let us down we can hear it sir it’s just buffering a little bit okay let’s try it have you do you need to upgrade the hotel Wi-Fi to the premium package can you hear that no nothing at the moment no okay I suspected this might happen sharing videos on um calls is a recipe for disaster so what I’ll do is um I will share that with you in the chat box after the yeah after we’ve had our chat and if anyone wants to watch it then they’re very welcome to but as well as kind of producing an actual strategy video we wanted to riding a bike is something that stays uh we wanted to do something a little bit different and something a bit more inspiring as well so we we commissioned um an agency based in Yorkshire to create a video for us which we premiered at the uh launch of our strategy last week and have been pushing online ever since so any one who sees it if you like if you like the message in the video you feel you can then we’d be really grateful if you could share it with your networks on on social media but without further Ado to kind of actually sort of go into the strategy a little bit more now um here we’ve got our vision mission and purpose set out so our vision is for happier healthier and Greener lives through cycling so a big focus of the new strategy is to really kind of double down on the benefits of cycling make sure we position cycling not as an end in itself but as something that can really unlock these wider benefits and we’ve particularly chosen those three but we know that there are other benefits to cycling like I’ve mentioned already in terms of the economy and so on um I won’t read all of these words because that’s a bit boring but I’m happy to um share these slides afterwards so you can look at them in your leisure um but yeah we’ve tried to capture something here that we felt was inspiring but also kind of knotted to a slightly different direction for cycle UK um to go into a little bit more detail in terms of the objectives themselves again they’re not that these are very high level so um they won’t give you the clearest sense of the actual projects and campaigns that sit underneath them but hopefully give you an idea of which way we’re headed um so the first one increase transport Choice by enabling and encouraging more people to cycle local Journeys that’s really all about getting people out of their cars and onto onto their bikes we didn’t want to mention car specifically for framing purposes and not to kind of stoke the kind of anti-ar or or I don’t know identity politics uh culture War stuff but that’s really what the objective is all about um the second one moving across is to improve perceptions of cycling so that everyone sees the benefits that’s one that I personally most excited about it’s it’s going to be really hard but we really want to um create a kind of ground swell of public support cycling over the next 5 to 10 years knowing that it’s the Public’s view that will really then shape in the end the policy makers view if if everyone really does see the benefits of cycling The Wider benefits even if they don’t cycle themselves and start to kind of see as an issue that they want to kind of flag and hear about at general elections like they like we are at the moment although we’re not hearing enough about cycling nowhere near enough then that’s when we’ll get that consistency of funding that consistency of process cycling policy so that’s a really key one for cycling UK over the next 10 years the third one is to boost the number and diversity of people who cycle which I think is quite self-explanatory we won’t be satisfied if the numbers are just going up but we’re not also mixing up the diversity of Cy cyclists people who cycle I am trying to use that language more now again to sort of um help grow back from this idea that you’re either a cyclist or a pedestrian or a driver we know that’s very much not the case the fourth one there make cycling an even more positive experience um cycling is a fantastic experience but we know it could be even better and a lot of the work that we already do around things like um developing new roots and addressing the state of our roads and traffic will sit under that objective and the fifth one is the kind of catch all golden thread where we really just want to be the best charity we can be so that we can deliver those other four more kind of external facing objectives so I’ll go into a tiny bit more detail now on each of those so you can get a better sense of what they mean but transport choice is you know framing that a lot of us are using in the sector now which I think is really good um a lot of the things will be doing here will include um campaigning advocacy policy and public affairs we really do want to see an increased investment in cycling infrastructure there’s a reason why that’s our kind of top ask in our general election Manifesto um in the runup to July the 4th we see that as being absolutely crucial and we’ve got a strong evidence based for why that’s important and what it can deliver in terms of those wider benefits having um commissioned the IPP research back in in in February we also really want to do um some framing research which I thought this group would be particularly interested in because at the end of the process we want to gift it to the wider world and make sure that everyone can make use of it but in case you’re not aware the example we’ve been using is the Joseph Roundtree Foundation um who commissioned a big piece of framing research with the Frameworks Institute a few years ago on how to frame poverty as an issue and people still talk about this as being a real kind of game Cher in terms of the impact that that sector was having and having developed that research they did give it to their partners and um allies in the poverty sector other Charities that were working in that space so that everyone could make use of it and we would like to do exactly the same thing um on cycling and walking so we haven’t actually gone out there yet with a tender but that’s very much um the plan for the second half of the first year of the new strategy so we can keep you posted and obviously as and when um that is developed I’ll be very happy to come back um to a future meeting of of this group to talk you through it um but but yeah we think that’s really important in terms of making sure that we are talking about our issues in as engaging a way as possible not accidentally you know falling into any of those framing traps that are all too easy to fall into and that we are therefore able to kind of change those public perceptions and improve those public perceptions of cycling um boosting the number and diversity of people who cycle um a big part of that will be around our marketing Communications we wanted do a lot more to platform um people who sort of challenge the idea of what a typical cyclist looks like or who might ride a bike so you’ll be seeing a lot of stuff from cycling UK really good case study work across our you know social media platforms as well as kind of selling into the traditional media really engaging stories of of people who um yeah are already enjoying the benefits of cycling whether they’re environmental or or to do with their mental health and wellbeing or their physical health we’re going to be doing a lot more to kind of tell the human story of our work I think someone said to me quite early on um when I joined cycling UK that the evidence is there now we’ve we’ve won the argument on why cycling is a good thing but we haven’t won all the hearts and mind so we are determined to win hearts and Minds over the next 5 to 10 years and um really good storytelling is going to be a big part of that making cycling an even more positive experience um yeah particularly Keen to to kind of develop more off-road work uh routes over the next few years um we are working with a funder who’s Keen to kind of help us do that which is really good news it’s something that scon UK is really proud of and um yeah we’ve got some fantastic roots in all four corners of the UK at the moment but we we want to do more and there will definitely be u a big push for that over the next few years in the next two years even and then the perceptions one I feel like I’ve talked about a fair bit already so I might not say too much more on this and then finally um a bit more about what we mean in terms of increasing our impact as a charity we’ve got a really good solid income stream from the 71,000 members I mentioned earlier but we know that we can broaden our um income into other areas things that we’re not really doing very well at the moment for example working really closely with trust and Foundations that’s something that other Charities do really well we have really maximize our opportunities there and with our new vision really kind of leaning into things like the environmental benefits of of cycling there could potentially be an opportunity for example to work with more environmental trusts and Foundations so that’s something that we’ll be Keen to explore over the next few years and something I’m a bit daunted by but also very excited by is that we’re about to kick off um a brand refresh not a Rebrand we’re not going to change our name but we do feel that our brand could work better for us um I think maybe a few years ago there was a brand review at cycling UK and I think at the time the brand was thought to be quite stayed and maybe a bit fuddy duddy so we were Keen to kind of make it more accessible more familyfriendly I wonder if the pendulum maybe swung too far the other way and I think there’s something that we could maybe get a bit more in the middle that um is a kind of yeah a brand that works for us in terms of like the new strategy and direction that we’re going in at the moment moment so again we can come back and talk to you about that at Future meetings if it’s of interest and then I did have a very cheeky any other business because I told um some colleagues that um I was coming to the active travel Cafe today and I had two requests from different teams so one was from our governance team um we’re looking to attract new members to our board we’ve got a fantastic board um but we do have a few gaps that we’d like to fill at the moment um um so at the moment the rules dictate that you need to be a member of cycling UK for at least 12 months in order to apply but I’m assuming there might be a few cycling UK members on the call so if you are um and you’re interested in potentially being a trustee then do pop me a message and let me know we can talk you through it um the deadline for that is the third of July so that’s coming up fairly soon now um but yeah we’re particularly interested to um receive applications from women and and people from diverse backgrounds but really ultimately it’s about the skill sets which we’ve got a clear sense of and I can talk you through and then the other one was from our campaigns team um we’ve got a supporter action at the moment out there um asking people to email their prospective parliamentary candidates in their own constituency um calling on them to sign cycling UK’s pledge where we’ve we’ve got six Manifesto commitments in advance of the next general election but there’s three that we’ve pulled out as being particular particularly important around investment in cycling infrastructure improving and strength strengthening the planning process and delivering an integrated um transport strategy that increases transport choices so those are the three things that we’re looking for candidates to pledge we’ve had lots of green um ppc’s pledge and some lib Dems and only a handful of Labor and conservative so far and given they’re the the two dominant parties that does feel like a bit of a gap so anything that you can do to help um encourage more labor and conservative ppcs to sign that pledge would be really really um yeah gratefully received but yeah happy to take any questions and have a bit of a discussion thanks Sarah that was excellent yeah if you pop your slides down we’ll just um bring some people in I’ve G think Sally did you want you pop a question in the chat but did you want me to ask it or are you happy to jump on um you can you just well I can oh think we’ve lost a I’d ask it go on then oh yeah okay um so Sarah was s’s question was is will cying you target Behavior change programs at places uh which have improved infrastructure given recent academic work suggesting it is ineffective on its own sorry Steve can you say that again it’s the question was will you be targeting that behavior change Research into areas where let me get this exactly right and places no yeah so the the well actually your behavior change programs that you mentioned whether they um Sally’s referring to recent academic work which suggests that um improved infrastructure on its own is ineffective and needs to be twinned with behavior change program so wondering whether that’s part of your thinking that’s a really good point and I can definitely take that back to the team um to reassure that yeah we completely agree that infrastructure is important but Behavior change is going to continue to be a big part of cycling UK’s Focus um we’re keen to get the new ministerial team out to one of our big big bike Revival um projects early doors um later this year so they can understand and appreciate the value of that scheme um because yeah whenever there’s a new government there is a bit of nervousness that you know they won’t necessarily understand the impact and benefit of these things so to reassure that yeah we really do see the value and cross referencing those and everything else is really important brilliant thanks sir and we’ve got a question from Tim war in Birmingham Tim Tim ask um what do earlier campaigns like safe Roads Traffic fening the law where do they fit in the new strategies yeah I think a lot of that stuff would sit under kind of um making cycling the most positive experience it can be um but yeah maybe just to sort of dive into that a little bit more something that we’re keen to do at cycling UK is develop a kind of priority campaigning model so at the moment we’ve got quite a few different topics and policy issues that we um chug along with and Advocate on um to one degree or another but what we’d really like to do is Identify two to three max a year ideally issues that can be campaigned on uk-wide even if the policy context varies slightly um that are kind of priority campaigns that we do put more resource into because I think the one of the main things I’ve learned in my years as a kind of campaigner or or lobbyist is that you’re so much more impactful if you concentrate your resources on a smaller number of issues so what we’d like to develop is two to three priority campaigns that yeah tick the boxes that the charity needs whether it’s kind of the most politically Salient issues but also thinking about things that our members and supporters particularly care about that are going with the grade of the the new government to some extent there’ll be a different kind of criteria that we match this against but also then having a kind of lighter touch program of work that sits behind that so it wouldn’t be that anything that isn’t a priority campaign isn’t taken forward but just really making that clear distinction that XY Z issue is is a huge one for cycling UK okay and these other ones are going to be kind of more on the back burner thanks Sarah um Ruth have you got a question for Sarah yeah hi thanks Sarah I was there at the event it was Fab and thank you very much great my bug bear always and everyone on the call knows this is about how um cycling is and walking in fact is down to charitable status and it depends on how much you get and how much seat table you might get I just wonder though um maintenance which I bang on about is there’s no point having cycle Lanes walking paths all this kind of stuff if they’re overgrown not maintained and we know that governments don’t fund councils enough and councils don’t see it as an essential thing so in your strategy I haven’t read it worth the word I would hope though that maintenance features because there’s no point anyone cycling along a route and then suddenly it’s all broken apart and we have to rely on susten charity to repair it it really cycling UK absolutely has got to you know focus on that like route four which I always go on about is wonderful in some places and then a disaster in others well if you’ve decided to go on a bike ride with children or with luggage or with someone in a recumbent they cannot complete their journey and there is no diversion so that has to be part of your strategy absolutely and Ruth if you did read our strategy you wouldn’t see anything about maintenance in there because it doesn’t go into that kind of detail it’s only really a 12-page do that’s very kind of top top level but um completely agree with what you’re saying and just like what what we’d argue with row they need to be maintained um really well and that that applies to cycle Lanes just as much so it’s not just about the shiny new infrastructure but making sure that we’re looking after our existing infrastructure and the IPP research that was published in February that we commissioned um in that report they’re calling for um the government to crank up to two billion a year by the end of the the first Parliament um and that would include not just new infrastructure but maintaining existing infrastructure as well so completely agree with you there and sah just one one more from me and and then we’ll be close to wrapping up and I know you got to thing at six I apologies about this but um just one thing which is you know it’s it’s it’s very important during an election period to feel very frustrated all the time and rant at the Telly and the topics the two topics that haven’t cropped up um in the debates obviously are brexit which is insane that it’s not been a pointed political debate um but given where we started with Rishi sunak signaling sort of firing the starting G on a culture War around low traffic neighborhoods and Net Zero and that kind of disappeared didn’t it and I was I don’t know whether you were limbering up ready for active travel to become this sort of flash point in the Electoral campaign it hasn’t really happened in fact it’s it was in the chat earlier in this session how disappointing it is that we haven’t been talking about this or transport more generally enough in the election campaign so what’s your take on the the sort of political Tea Leaves in the bottom of the cup yeah I mean we we did have a bit of a moment didn’t we I think it was about 10 days ago I was just logging off um work on a Friday night and someone sent me the press release from the conservatives about the backing drivers bill and I was like oh my God and we got a kind of copy of the Embargo press release and then issued a statement in response and I think that was the conservative attempt just sort of Dipping their toe and see if they could get any traction with that but it really just was a damp squib um so I don’t think that yeah I mean transport is very rarely one of the top five issues in a general election it really does come down to things like the economy and yeah cost of living you know NHS always the environment it doesn’t really manage to kind of get up there in terms of one of the top five issues so I think that um after the oxridge by election I think they were still tempted to see whether it was going to be something that would help give them traction and the conservatives just throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks and I don’t think it worked I think they have left left that alone but I have to say I was disappointed with some of the framing around Labor’s Manifesto that even though the policies themselves looked decent enough um around some of this stuff like investing in potholes and so on the framing was terrible and the idea that they trying to match the conservatives talking about being on the side of drivers is so depressing so we’ve obvious got a big job of work to do there cuz I’m really hoping that the new government there will be a reset and we can you know be blank piece of paper we can kind of stop talking about cycling like it’s a wedge issue like it’s part of the culture wars and try to get back to that kind of cross- party consensus but labor moving in that direction was was quite worrying so I think yeah we can’t um take anything for granted at this point which I’m sure is a a phrase uttered in labor cir on a daily basis so uh we’re all waiting to see what happens but yeah very good point um well listen I’m conscious that you have to be off Sarah um to another event on the packed City schedule that you’ve got over in Gent but thank you so much for coming to talk to us and certainly if you would like to use us a sounding board please do come again and C that framing research um and I know we’ve we’ve been around that particular um Cyclops Junction a few times on active travel Cafe so if if you want to come back and talk to us about framing we’ll lap it up I promise great I love framing too okay that yeah I’ll definitely take you up on that thank you and yeah nice to see you all hope that was useful have a good evening thank you very much Sarah and thank you everybody for joining us we we’ll be back again next week we’ve got another couple of episodes as I said earlier we’ve got uh the same link will work for the rest of this Summer’s episode so please join us next week for another fun-packed active travel Cafe thank you Adam for helping me have a lovely evening everybody