It’s election season once again, and this time we are looking at the choices of candidates standing for election as MP in the Greater Manchester region on 4 July.
Walk Ride GM groups have prepared the following questions and sent them to all candidates across Greater Manchester. We will add their replies to this page as they arrive.
The questions
Altrincham & Sale West
Ashton-Under-Lyne
Blackley & Middleton South
Bolton North East
Bolton South & Walkden
Bolton West
Bury North
Bury South
Cheadle
Gorton & Denton
Hazel Grove
Heywood & Middleton North
Leigh & Atherton
Makerfield
Manchester Central
Manchester Rusholme
Manchester Withington
Oldham East & Saddleworth
Oldham West, Chadderton & Royton
Rochdale
Salford
Stalybridge & Hyde
Stockport
Stretford & Urmston
Wigan
Worsley & Eccles
Wythenshawe & Sale East
The questions
1. Rebalancing the Roads
Do you commit to supporting improvement of the built environment to enable more people to walk, wheel, and cycle for more of their journeys?
2. Pedestrian Spaces
Do you commit to supporting the decluttering of our pedestrian spaces and routes to prioritise people walking and wheeling, including a ban on pavement parking, clear policy on obstructions such as electric vehicle charging equipment, and removal of any barriers contravening the Equality Act 2010 Section 149(4), regarding public sector equality duty to disabled people?
3. Streets for All
Do you commit to supporting Transport for Greater Manchester’s new Streets for All Design Guide treatment on all public highways in your constituency, including protected cycleways along arterial routes and redesigning streets to provide a fairer balance of space on public highways to people walking, wheeling, and cycling?
4. Street Parking Management
Do you commit to supporting a strategy to manage and implement relocation of street parking to off-street locations, and instead using the highway space to prioritise direct routes for people to walk, wheel and cycle?
Altrincham & Sale West
Geraldine Coggins – Green Party
As a Green I’m very happy to support all these committments. These are things I’m already working hard on as a Green Party councillor in Altrincham for the last 6 years. Road safety and making it easy, safe and pleasant to get around by foot or wheel are among my top priorities.
Personally, our family doesn’t have a car and so active transport is a way of life for us. I know the challenges and also the joys of cycling with children and teenagers, and of finding safe routes, using cargo bikes and tag-alongs.
On Trafford council our Green Party group has been campaigning to rebalance our road space to include safe walking, cycling, wheeling and schooting space. This includes a just kerbside policy, so that kerbspace is used for everyone not just car owners. We’re also pushing for action on pavement parking. I’ve been trying to get school streets schemes implemented in Altrincham and although it hasn’t happened yet, have been heartened by the other schemes across Trafford I’ve visited. I hope the Altrincham schools will follow soon and we’re continuing to work on that.
There’s an overview of our active travel manifesto commitments here.
There’s more detail in the full manifesto here.
Ashton-Under-Lyne
Awaiting responses
Blackley & Middleton South
Dylan Lewis-Creser – Green Party
- Rebalancing the Roads – Both myself and the Green Party are fully committed to making active travel the easiest and default option for people in this country. We would invest £8 billion on new cyclepaths and footpaths, and ensure that they are in the places people need them.
- Pedestrian Spaces – Yes.
- Streets for All – Yes.
- Street Parking Management – Yes.
Bolton North East
Awaiting responses
Bolton South & Walkden
Jack Khan – Workers Party
Yes, absolutely I am with you on all 4 points.
Bolton West
Vicki Attenborough – Green Party
I totally agree with all of the pledge requests. The Green Party recognise that walking and cycling aren’t just good for reducing carbon emissions and air pollution – they help make us all happier and healthier.
Elected Greens will, as stated in our manifesto:
- Push to spend 2.5bn a year on new cycleways and footpaths, built using sustainable materials
- Look at how we use streets in residential areas to reduce traffic and open them up for use by the community
- Adopt Active Travel England’s objective for 50% of trips in England’s towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030.
I therefore commit to all of the points in your email.
Personally I try to walk/ride most places, but struggle with cycling in traffic. We need to do better. Elected MPs from the Green Party would aim to do this.
All the best for your very important campaign!
Bury North
Mark Alcock – Liberal Democrat
I support the following:
- Rebalancing the Roads
Do you commit to supporting improvement of the built environment to enable more people to walk, wheel, and cycle for more of their journeys?
- Pedestrian Spaces
Do you commit to supporting the decluttering of our pedestrian spaces and routes to prioritise people walking and wheeling, including a ban on pavement parking, clear policy on obstructions such as electric vehicle charging equipment, and removal of any barriers contravening the Equality Act 2010 Section 149(4), regarding public sector equality duty to disabled people?
- Streets for All
Do you commit to supporting Transport for Greater Manchester’s new Streets for All Design Guide treatment on all public highways in your constituency, including protected cycleways along arterial routes and redesigning streets to provide a fairer balance of space on public highways to people walking, wheeling, and cycling?
- Street Parking Management
Do you commit to supporting a strategy to manage and implement relocation of street parking to off-street locations, and instead using the highway space to prioritise direct routes for people to walk, wheel and cycle?
Owain Sutton – Green Party
Very much committed to all of these. As one of the Green Party councillors in Trafford, we’re consistently pushing for active travel to be taken seriously, and for a massive shift in how we use our finite public space for transport. I brought a motion to council recently calling for a Greater London-style ban on pavement parking, which (somewhat to my surprise) was voted for by all parties without any amendments.
Bury South
Andrew Page – Liberal Democrat
- Rebalancing the Roads – Yes. It makes sense to do this. Moving away from car dependency is only going to happen if the environment becomes more Walking, wheeling and cycling friendly.
- Pedestrian Spaces – My own personal health issues meant that I spent several months last year using a wheelchair. That gave me some insight into the problems experienced by disabled people while out in the community.
There are so many barriers and obstacles to safe wheeling (and walking). Yes, I would support a pavement parking ban, although this requires redesigning many of our roads, which were not designed for parking. But it can work – it is, for example, banned in London – and it is time that councils were given powers to deal with the problem of pavement parking.
As far as I am aware there is no clear policy on obstructions such as those you describe – there certainly should be. We need to be rethinking our community spaces to ensure safe walking, cycling, wheeling and parking – and especially with the needs of disabled and elderly people in mind. - Streets for All – Yes, absolutely. I am fully supportive of this.
- Street Parking Management – Yes. Again, this requires some creative thinking in how we redesign our towns and community spaces, but it can be done. The status quo isn’t working, and is actively failing many people in our communities.
This would be a major move forward in making our built-up areas safer and more friendly for non-vehicle users.
Michael Welton – Green Party
- Rebalancing the Roads – Yes. We’ve seen other European countries and cities successfully invest to transform their built environment to promote walking, wheeling and cycling. It’s no secret why a third of all journeys in the Netherlands are by bike. There’s nothing exceptional about the UK that means we can’t do the same with the right political will. I’m a firm believer in ‘if you build it they will come’, which has been proved right countless times, from London’s cycle superhighways to Manchester’s Oxford Road.
- Pedestrian Space – Yes. Ensuring our streets and routes are accessible to everyone needs to be a fundamental principle of transport policy for the next government. If we are getting it right for those who find walking and wheeling the most difficult, then we get it right for everyone. Far more needs to be invested in upgrading kerbs and crossings, and we absolutely need new powers for local authorities to ban or restrict pavement parking.
- Streets for All – Yes. The Streets for All Design Guide sets the standards that we need if we are to encourage much higher levels of walking, wheeling and cycling in Bury South and across Greater Manchester. If elected I would work to get the investment required to transform our streets to the standards set out in the guide, and oppose proposals that don’t live up to them.
- Street Parking Management – Yes, for high priority routes. For residential streets I admire Lambeth Council’s ‘Kerbside Strategy’ which seeks to repurpose a percentage of highway space for a variety of uses, including raingardens, parklets, cycle lanes and cycle storage, scooter and bike hire hubs, bus stops, car club bays, EV charging and more disabled and loading bays. This approach can transform our streets from drab car parks into attractive community spaces that promote alternatives to car journeys, while providing more orderly, discreet parking for those who need it.
Cheadle
Tom Morrison – Liberal Democrat
- Rebalancing the Roads – Yes.
- Pedestrian Spaces – I support the aim of decluttering pedestrian spaces, but there has to be a pragmatic approach to pavement parking and electric vehicle charging. We face an enormous challenge to have the infrastructure in place to move to electric vehicles, and we need to find a workable solution to allow families without off road parking, to charge their vehicles on street. There are potential solutions that ar workable and will avoid causing obstructions for pedestrians. A complete ban on pavement parking is simply unworkable on a large proportion of streets. We need local authorities to have the powers to ban pavement parking where it is feasible, rather than a blanket ban, and most importantly, we need to ensure that all new streets are designed in such a way to protect pedestrian spaces and make provision for electric charging points and disability access.
- Streets for All – I support separated cycleways, and I want to see all new developments including cycleways in the highway designs. I also support streets for all, as long as this does not result in longer car journeys and more pollution and simply moving car traffic from one road to another, creating winners and losers.
- Street Parking Management – I am not sure how realistic this is. Just thinking about roads within my constituency, it would be impossible to simply move the volume of vehicles on the roads to somewhere else, when there simply is not the space off street. I would be happy to be provided more detail on how Walk Ride GM would see this working.
Gorton & Denton
Andrew Gwynne – Labour
Yes to all.
Hazel Grove
Awaiting responses
Heywood & Middleton North
Awaiting responses
Leigh & Atherton
Awaiting responses
Makerfield
Awaiting responses
Manchester Central
Chris Northwood – Liberal Democrat
- Rebalancing the Roads – Yes. Our built environment needs to ensure there is a hierarchy of priority, prioritising the most vulnerable (wheelchair/mobility users, pedestrians and then cyclists before cars) to move around and to reduce the requirement for a car. In Manchester Central, I know car ownership is low so by enabling more walking, wheeling and cycling enables greater participation in the local community. It’s also a crucial tool in tackling the climate emergency.
- Pedestrians Spaces – Yes. Decluttering benefits all, not only in satisfying legal requirements but also as the moral thing to do, as well as improving the aesthetic of our streets! As a local councillor, I have scrutinised plans for tackling pavement parking in Manchester and have challenged GMP’s conservative approach for enforcement so far. I engaged with WRGM ahead of that scrutiny session to be best informed, and look forward to scrutinising further plans for kerbside electric vehicle charging.
- Streets for All – Yes. The Streets For All design guide is welcome and high quality. In my existing role as a local councillor I have asked the question of officers to ensure that the guide is used (alongside LTN 1/20) as a reference when designing schemes and won some small concessions (e.g., on an Old Mill Street zebra crossing).
- Street Parking Management – This is a principle I support, whilst recognising the challenges in some areas of Manchester which do not have the necessary area or space to do this relocation, I would support strategies that move towards this principle.
Parham Hashemi – Workers Party
As someone who lives in the Manchester Central constituency, I am acutely aware of the challenges we face in creating a more accessible and pedestrian-friendly environment. I understand the daily struggles and concerns of residents, and I am committed to making our community a safer and more enjoyable place to live.
- Rebalancing the Roads – I wholeheartedly commit to supporting the improvement of our built environment to enable more people to walk, wheel, and cycle for their journeys. I believe that promoting active travel is essential for our health, wellbeing, and the environment. As someone who regularly commutes through Manchester, I see the need for safer and more convenient options for pedestrians and cyclists.
- Pedestrian Spaces – Decluttering pedestrian spaces and routes is crucial. I commit to supporting initiatives that ban pavement parking and address obstructions such as electric vehicle charging equipment. Ensuring our public spaces are accessible to everyone, including disabled individuals, is a top priority. We must comply with the Equality Act 2010 and create a more inclusive environment.
- Streets for All – I fully support Transport for Greater Manchester’s Streets for All Design Guide. Implementing protected cycleways along arterial routes and redesigning streets to balance space more fairly among pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists is essential. I believe these changes will make our streets safer and more user-friendly for everyone.
- Street Parking Management – Managing street parking and relocating it to off-street locations is a sensible approach. This strategy will free up space on our highways, making them more accessible for pedestrians, cyclists, and those who wheel. I support prioritising direct routes for active travel to improve connectivity and reduce congestion.
I am passionate about these issues because they directly impact our quality of life here in Manchester Central.
Manchester Rusholme
Awaiting responses
Manchester Withington
Sam Easterby-Smith – Green Party
As a long standing campaigner for active travel and as a Green Party candidate in this election I wholeheartedly commit to all four of these pledges.
- Rebalancing the Roads – Rebalancing our roads is about more than just the built environment, it’s about the whole environment. It’s also about public health and physical activity, reducing air pollution, inclusivity, and having a more welcoming and liveable city.
Critically, rebalancing our roads is a key tool for tackling climate change.
According to the Department for Transport, in 2022, 26% of the UK’s carbon emissions came from transport, and 86% of all passenger kilometres were travelled using cars, vans and taxis.
To effectively decarbonise the transport sector, we need to reduce that. We need to prioritise walking, wheeling, and cycling for short journeys and public transport for longer ones. That means changing people’s behaviour – and to change people’s behaviour, our built environment needs to make it safe, easy and obvious to make the choice.
Meanwhile, introducing a little more friction into transport modes that we want to discourage is not a bad thing. - Pedestrian Spaces – Spend some time in a wheelchair or pushing a double buggy, and suddenly you’ll see it, you’ll be slaloming around the obstacles – and you’ll no doubt find yourself with no option but to bump down into the carriageway before you’ve got very far…
Pavement parking has become completely normalised, with cars encroaching onto pedestrian space everywhere and drivers not thinking anything of it. Heaven forbid if you happen to be standing with a toddler in someone’s way as they mount the kerb with their SUV. I would see a UK-wide pavement parking ban with accompanying public information campaigns and strict enforcement. Pavement parking needs to become as socially unacceptable as leaving a poop (canine or otherwise) on the footway.
The intrusions onto pavement space from poorly placed signs, a-boards, bins, telecoms poles, advertising screens, wires to charge EVs, etc etc also needs urgent attention and councils need guidance, funding, and powers to mitigate the problems.
The build quality of our pavements and road interfaces leaves a lot to be desired in many areas. A bump or a bit of a camber which wouldn’t trouble someone on foot can become a serious obstacle to someone on wheels, be they a child scooting or a wheelchair user.
Access to footpaths, parks and green spaces are so often accompanied by inaccessible barriers. They are a literal barrier to accessing what should be safe walking and cycling routes, and accessing nature.
There are other enforcement mechanisms available for dirt bikes. - Streets for All – I strongly support the Streets for All design guide treatment. It’s a very well thought-out, comprehensive and clear document and enshrines the transport user hierarchy, safety, inclusivity and community. It puts it all in the context of a joined up system, and if it were rigorously adopted by local authorities would produce numerous positive outcomes, from decarbonisation, to public health, to job creation, to tackling inequality.
Beyond good guidance, councils need funding and leadership to achieve this – as Greens we commit in our manifesto to pushing for £2.5bn a year in funding for new cycleways and footpaths.
We need our LTNs, we need our protected cycleways, we need to roll it out rapidly and at scale. - Street Parking Management – We give way too much priority to on-street parking, particularly in our urban centres and suburban high streets. Parking is a feedback loop. People demand it because that’s how they currently get there. By removing on-street parking to create better, more direct, pedestrian, active travel and public transport connectivity, the need for it diminishes.
Thanks so much for your efforts at Walk Ride GM, and I’m very proud to support walking, wheeling and cycling.
Oldham East & Saddleworth
Sam Al-Hamdani – Liberal Democrat
- Rebalancing the Roads – I have been working on a Neighbourhood Plan for Saddleworth, so not only do I support the principles of making it easier for people to walk, wheel and cycle, I am delivering concrete proposals to do so. I have also (with my council ward colleagues) been working on delivering the first school streets project in the UK outside London to be ANPR monitored. This should launch in September, creating a safe space around two local schools, where traffic issues have been endemic for nearly 30 years, and hopefully making it possible for parents to walk and cycle safely to the schools, and also making it better for the environment.
- Pedestrian Spaces – Oldham is a very traditional town with very limited space for car parking, and an outright ban on car parking is, certainly in the short term, too restrictive. In the Government consultation that was carried out around a year and a half ago, I supported the Government giving councils the power to introduce bans where necessary. I also support much stronger action by the police against parking where it significantly impedes pedestrians, particular those using wheelchairs or pushchairs which require more space.
On car charging, I have been working with Oldham Council and the Department for Transport, and new guidance is shortly to be issued on on street car charging, in particular encouraging Councils to adopt cable channels as a solution which does not impede pedestrians, and I have already written to Oldham Council requesting them to take up these standards straight away, rather than waiting for the national guidance to be introduced.
I have also highlighted instances of the Council failing to deal with barriers which, in particular, prevent wheelchair users to be able to access green spaces and parks across the borough. - Streets for All – The Streets of All guide is a constructive and positive approach. My only concern is that – as with many initiatives at the GM level, it is not supported in practice and with sufficient funding to make it a reality.
- Street Parking Management – As with the pedestrian spaces question, this is a laudable ambition; delivery is sometimes different. That said, in the Neighbourhood Plan for Saddleworth, which I have worked on extensively, we have worked on creating spaces which prioritise cycle, pedestrian and wheeled access and connections. Over time, this is absolutely the correct approach; we need to create off-road parking, and sufficient visitor parking to ensure that spaces are truly shared spaces, where each mode of transport has the correct priority and can each be used as appropriate.
Shanaz Saddique – Workers Party
The issue of how pedestrians, young children and the old and disabled move around our public spaces is key to safety and enhancing lifestyle choices. As you MP I will commit to making our streets safer to walk along and use. Walking, Wheeling and Cycling are key to a number of issues, firstly there are health benefits from leaving the car at home. Secondly social interaction is increased and this in itself will aid community spirit as individuals and families inter mingle with each other and not just drive past.
But we must introduce a street structure that enables young mums with a pushchair to access the community they live in. Ensure disabled people, particularly those in wheelchairs have enough space to move around without dodging street furniture.
Encouraging cycling will enhance individuals’ street experience, with less car activity comes less pollution, less overcrowding on the roads. This however can only come about with a plan to expand cycle lanes and ensure town centre and public places have cycle parking areas.
Oldham, Chadderton & Royton
Awaiting responses
Rochdale
Awaiting responses
Salford
Awaiting responses
Stalybridge & Hyde
Awaiting responses
Stockport
Ashley Walker – Stockport Fights Austerity, No to Cuts
- Rebalancing the Roads – Yes I do.
- Pedestrian Spaces – These seem like reasonable measures however if we want to see a genuine reduction in car usage we need to prioritise a massive expansion of public transport as well.
- Streets for All – These seem like reasonable measures however if we want to see a genuine reduction in car usage we need to prioritise a massive expansion of public transport as well.
- Street Parking Management – These seem like reasonable measures however if we want to see a genuine reduction in car usage we need to prioritise a massive expansion of public transport as well. Also residents must be able to have a democratic say on what happens to the streets they live on.
Stretford & Urmston
Dan Jerrome – Green Party
I very much to commit to all these things. It is a firm ‘yes’ from me.
Wigan
The Zok
Rebalancing the roads, decluttering pedestrian spaces, providing fairer balance on public highways for cycling, wheeling, walking and relocation of street parking is absolutely essential for improving on every aspect of living in today’s society. There is no alternative but to commit to these improvements in their entirety.
Jane Leicester – Green Party
I certainly will support the policies you outline to improve public health, cut carbon emissions from transport, boost the local economy and reduce transport poverty. I actively support the Streets for All Design Guide.
The Green Party manifesto states we will push to spend £2.5bn a year on new cycleways and footpaths. Funding earmarked for road building will be re-allocated for this.
We will make it easier to opt for greener choices by championing public transport for every community, and giving local authorities control over and funding for improved bus services.
I, and the Green Party advocate for a modal shift. We adopt Active Travel England’s objective for 50% of trips in England’s towns and cities to be walked, wheeled or cycled by 2030.
We are also committed to reimagining the way we use streets in residential areas to reduce traffic and open them up for use by the community.
There is complete harmony between the Walk Ride GM vision and what we in the Green Party are seeking to achieve. We explicitly mention the health benefits of walking and cycling in our manifesto, we understand that they have a hugely positive effect on our health and well-being, which no other mode of transport does. And importantly, they are available to use by the greatest number of the population, particularly children. Safe routes to schools are given high priority by the Green Party, so that most children are able to walk or cycle to school.