Dame Sarah Storey has recently left her post as Active Travel Commissioner for Sheffield City Region.
Here she reflects on her time in post, the work she was involved in and the role that Active Travel needs to play going forward.
Having recently left working in South Yorkshire for my home city of Manchester, I’ve spent many a happy hour pedalling my bike and reflecting on the 3 years spent steering the Active Travel Programme during Dan Jarvis’ mayoral term.
When I first arrived in Sheffield for the announcement of my appointment, I was overwhelmed by the excitement and welcome from the people, many of whom I went on to work alongside throughout my post. With a rich history of being the outdoor city, a vital piece of that culture was missing, in that it was [and sadly still is] incredibly difficult to get around without a motor vehicle. I pledged I would be guided and hold the region to account on 4 key pillars;
We would be led by our communities
We would enable and not just encourage
All infrastructure would meet or exceed new standards
We would ensure all infrastructure was accessible everyone regardless of their access needs
From the start, road danger reduction was a key focus of every community I visited. It would take time to build new active travel infrastructure, reallocate road space and change people’s mindset that a car didn’t need to always be the default mode of travel, so it was vital we tackled the poor behaviour of a minority of drivers that dominated the reasons why people didn’t feel safe enough to walk or cycle already.
Early engagement with South Yorkshire Police provided us with a single point of contact in Inspector Kevin Smith and together we discussed the strategy that would disseminate best practise for roads policing to better protect those out walking or cycling.
Inspector Smith launched the Operation Close Pass campaign and I joined him on this for a very eye opening afternoon of cycling on a road that I had to admit I would always avoid due to the dangers we faced. Further expansion of roads traffic policing is in the pipeline and Inspector Smith has a very open dialogue within his neighbourhood and is sharing this best practice across South Yorkshire Police.
Another key area of our preparations for when the region has a more comprehensive network, was to widen access to a cycles for a wider variety of needs. Sheffield already had a well established Cycling for All hub and we worked with Cycling Projects to establish hubs like this in the other parts of the region – Doncaster and Barnsley have opened this year.
These have enabled individuals and groups who have never tried cycling before, and are opening specialist social prescribing opportunities and widened the discussion around what cycling actually can achieve. Although there are still those who assume a person with a disability or long term health condition will never cycle, the narrative about cycling is changing and more people are seeing it as an activity or transport solution, not just as a sport.
In some medical practices active travel is seen as a solution to physical and mental health challenges, and we have started to make greater links with the Integrated Care System so that the dial can be shifted to create longer healthy lives through being active. A new Social prescribing pilot has started in Doncaster, building on their local delivery pilot, and learning from the great work across Yorkshire, including practices in Sheffield. I also helped convince Mayor Dan Jarvis to allocate £1m towards better walking and wheeling access for local nature spots, a key lesson from the pandemic.
During the first year of the programme the new infrastructure standards were adopted by the leaders of the region and this has really helped shape the narrative of how we provide active travel lanes and convenient walking routes that people will use.
More and more it is being understood that the inconvenience and journey delays should be distributed across all modes, with those travelling on foot or bike taking the most direct route. To further expand on the priority of those walking and cycling, local authorities are developing Active Neighbourhood plans which install modal filters to ensure vehicle traffic is longer able to use a residential area as a through route and reduces vehicle dependence for short journeys.
Pre-pandemic, 40% of utility journeys that were a kilometre or less were being driven and whilst a new normal hasn’t had time to stabilise it is my hope that the health lessons learned through what has been a dreadful two years, will see more awareness of the importance of building activity in to everyone’s day.
Travelling on foot or bike for short journeys remains the most effective and best use of everyone’s time and at a time when household budgets are squeezed and people and struggling to make ends meet, there should be no question that it is easy to access goods, services and opportunity in life, without the pre-requisite of owning a car.
Whilst I walk and cycle to work on the other side of the hill now, I am very keen to support the next phase for active travel in South Yorkshire and look forward to returning soon.