On Wednesday 11th September, school and civil society leaders attended the launch of a Mayor’s initiative to make cycles more accessible to MK residents. The event was hosted by Cycle Saviours, the city’s own cycling re-cycling centre.
The Mayor supported Cycle Saviours’ appeal to householders who have bikes which they are not using, to bring them to Cycle Saviours so they can be used by other residents who don’t have a bicycle.
“You can’t enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits of cycling if you don’t have a working bike you can ride,” Mayor Marie Bradburn said. “Cycle Saviours helps to address this by providing recycled bicycles at very affordable prices and also repairs. Together with the Council they’re doing all we can to get people on bikes at the start of Autumn.”
The event opened with a welcome from Simon Rudiger, CEO of MK Christian Foundation which runs Cycle Saviours (among other social enterprises) and Ian Revell, CEO of MK Community Foundation, which supports projects to address transport emissions. Bike Mechanic Ethan Barker explained how bikes are received and recycled.
Cllr Mandy Legg spoke about why increasing cycling matters to MK City Council, and then the Mayor introduced the Year of Schools Cycling, and talked about her personal cycling during Cycle September using the Love To Ride cycling app.
Bikeability instructor Richard Allman spoke about how MK school’s can access the Council’s Bikeability Training , in which schools host Bikeability trainers for 1-3 as they train up to 48 children aged 9-11 to ride on the redways and roads, starting in the playground.
Teachers Richard Hill of Glebe Farm School and Grant Malloch of Coldharbour School spoke about their positive experiences of Bikeability Olympics, in which primary school children compete to demonstrate bikeability skills and win Gold, Silver & Bronze medals.
Then teacher Jake Saville of Two Mile Ash School explained how his school had been involved in a pilot of Bike Bus, involving parent volunteers cycling with a group of pupils, picking up pupils at different points on a route to school.
Cody Jackson, Lord Grey Academy student and MK City Council Youth Councillor, talked about ideas from Youth Council about how to increase youth cycling.
Jane Whild of Voices of Women in MK talked about how to increase the % of women cycling to 50% and gave the results of a recent survey.
Ann Shrimpton, leader of Breeze rides for women, who recently accompanied Olympian cyclist Chris Boardman on a stretch of the ride to the Paris Olympics, talked about what works in encouraging women to cycle: opportunities to cycle, promotion of images of women cycling, confidence, role models, and building a sense of community in cycling by adding coffee & cake stop offs to weekend leisure rides.
David Haggart, Disability and Inclusion Relationship Manager at LEAP With Us , talked about various ways to help people with disabilities to enjoy cycling.
Hayley Roche and Raeesa Chowdhury, MK City Council Transport officers, launched See.Sense bike lights to track cycle usage and identify redway and road issues for cyclists (register here if interested).
Finally Simon Rudiger outlined next steps for the Cycling Citizens MK alliance, and the overarching goal of achieving 7% modal share for cycling in MK, and cyclists being 50% women.