A guest blog by Thomas van Laake, Graeme Sherriff and Harry Gray. We asked them to share their reflections on our recent conference, which focussed on cycling advocacy and policymaking in Greater Manchester.
Now nearly seven years past the launch of the ambitious ‘Made to Move’ strategy, cycling policy in Greater Manchester is at another critical juncture. Though a considerable program of policy and infrastructure development has been underway across the city region, advocates have often been disappointed by the pace and scale of change. However, with a new national government signalling a departure from the ‘war on the motorist’ rhetoric, and Andy Burnham taking his cycling network vision into a third city-region mayoral term, there’s reasons to be optimistic. Aiming to reflect on and learn from the successes and failures of the past years and consider the path forward, Walk Ride GM, together with researchers from the University of Salford and the University of Manchester’s Urban Institute, organised a conference on cycling policy and practice in Greater Manchester. The event, which was held on the 5th October 2024, saw over 80 individuals coming together for a day of panel discussions, interactive workshops, and walking and cycling safaris.
Health and inclusion
The morning session, which focussed on perspectives from policy and academia, kicked off with a panel on health and inclusion in cycling. As moderator Graeme Sherriff of the University of Salford emphasised in his introductory remarks, health is a key topic in cycling promotion. This was underlined by Eleanor Roaf, formerly a Director of Health and now pursuing a PhD at the University of Manchester, who described how evidence on the positive impact of cycling on health and educational impacts can help bring partners such as the NHS, council health teams, and schools together on cycling promotion efforts. Moves to include health and social care indicators in scheme appraisal hold the potential to further empower this perspective. However, the significant geographical and demographic inequalities in cycling rates mean that these benefits are unequally distributed across Greater Manchester.
In her powerful contribution, Naz Khan, speaking from personal experience as a woman of South Asian descent advocating for cycling in Cheetham Hill, underlined the barriers to cycling faced by marginalised groups in deprived areas. Addressing these inequalities will require ‘inclusive infrastructure, designed inclusively’, suggested Sam Hayes, a project manager at PLACED. For Sam, both patience and flexibility are necessary to develop community engagement processes that add value to cycling projects by building trust and adapting to local needs. He emphasised that we should not use community engagement as an excuse for inaction: communicating the need for action and project parameters are important parts of good engagement. As Naz underlined, advocates and planners concerned to address inequalities in places such as North Manchester would benefit from experiencing cycling conditions on the ground and learning from local experiences, rather than simply replicating what works elsewhere.
The subsequent discussion with the audience positioned inclusion, broadly understood to range from the use of braille models in consultations to working with delivery cyclists to improve their riding practices and road safety, as critical to the success of cycling policies. However, inclusive planning and consultation processes take time and open the door to deferral and delay, which we can ill afford considering the scale of the challenge ahead. Indeed, Eleanor voiced the frustrations of many advocates when commenting that while ‘we know what we should do, and how to do it’, we nonetheless ‘persist in not doing it’.
Streets and infrastructure
The tensions between quick delivery and careful planning were explored in further detail in the second panel of the morning session, which focussed on public and private sector professional’s experiences in processes of infrastructure planning and design across the city-region. Receiving plaudits for the renders of street makeovers produced by his company Planit, Pete Swift argued that advocates should leverage these and other tools to address the ‘woeful storytelling’ around active travel projects. While providing more appealing imagery and straightforward explanations might go a long way in justifying and defending schemes, John Townsend of ARUP reminded the panel that the goal of schemes should be to improve communities, rather than implementing infrastructure for its own sake. In his view, working closely with residents and recognizing their lived experience is not only a way to improve projects, but also to counter the distrust and entrenched opposition that can impede change.
These perspectives from private sector consultancies were complemented by Catriona Swanson’s (previously Salford, now Manchester City Council) and Adam Towers’ (Wigan Council) accounts of their work in the public sector. Their presentations outlined the role of local authority planning capacity in delivering high quality schemes and for learning from and improving on mistakes in previous projects. In her reflections, Catriona highlighted how local planning documents, such as Salford’s Cycling Network Plan, can enable decisive action when opportunities arise, such as during the Covid-19 pandemic; it will be interesting to follow how Manchester’s new Active Travel Strategy enables change across the Irwell.
While showcasing the wide variety of projects being undertaken across Wigan, Adam noted the borough’s embrace of off-road paths as an effective intervention in lower density environments. Complementing the earlier session’s discussion of inclusion by outlining the socio-economic inequalities across the city-region, Adam emphasised the different challenges and opportunities his team faces, compared to more central boroughs. Nonetheless, Adam also highlighted a common problem faced by all active travel planners across Greater Manchester: the ‘bitty’, discontinuous grant funding model that forces local authorities to dedicate vast amounts of time to bidding for cash rather than engaging with residents and delivering projects.
How to work with councillors
Following a recess during which conference participants joined walking and cycling safaris to assess local infrastructure conditions, guided by Walk Ride GM, the afternoon session of the conference turned to issues of advocacy and campaigning. The first panel, featuring two former and one current GM councillor and moderated by Harry Gray, centred on how to engage with councillors and included an interactive workshop.
For Iain Roberts (former Stockport councillor), councillors can be described as an ‘unofficial local government ombudsman’ as they are best placed to put you in contact with the right person to make changes happen. While recognising that reform is often slow and frustrating, James Frizzell (Stockport Councillor) suggested that active travel advocates can achieve more by focussing on positive, results-oriented engagement. Iain concurred, pointing out the symbolic value of pursuing quick wins and ‘low-hanging fruit’ to build momentum and demonstrate progress. While positioning ‘action as an antidote to despair’, Eve Holt (former Manchester councillor) emphasised the need to link cycling improvements to other local issues and build alliances rather than ‘do battle’ and risk alienating potential partners. More broadly, the councillors on the panel concurred that it is critical to relate cycling promotion, which can often be perceived as a single-issue topic, to broader problems such as health, children’s wellbeing and road safety.
Insights on campaigning
The day’s final session, on campaigning insights, invited experienced cycling advocates to share their lessons learned. Claire Stocks, one of the founders of Walk Ride GM, set out the importance of questioning what, specifically, is blocking change from happening. Her remarks outlined a campaigning approach where a more precise understanding of problems can inform the formulation of more suitable solutions. The need for constructive engagement with government to work through such blockages was affirmed by Melanie Etherton of the London Cycle Campaign. Sharing lessons from the capital, she underscored that while dialogue is important, it must be actionable: ‘talking to each other and agreeing is nice – but nothing happens.’ Sometimes, it’s better to make it practical. Given that ‘fear of death is a powerful motivator of change’, she suggested that any opportunity to get local decision makers riding bikes should be grasped.
Belinda Everett, of Bee Pedal Ready and Manchester’s BYCS ‘bike mayor’, shared insights from her extensive experience getting bums on bikes, not least with the successful Manchester Kidical Mass event, now four years running. Calling for advocates to stop ‘preaching to the converted’ and instead ‘push the campaign into different spaces’, Belinda found agreement among her co-panellists, including moderator Harry Gray. Citing his recent trip to Eid Cycle Fest, he encouraged advocates to step out of their comfort zones and engage with communities that may not have traditionally been involved. As the morning panel’s discussions on inequalities and urban differences show, this will be particularly critical in under-served spaces such as North Manchester and the city-region’s outer boroughs where the Walk Ride campaign has so far had less presence.
Thank you!
A big thank you to all the attendees for coming out, engaging the speakers with questions, and making this event a success. We are grateful to our panel guests for sharing their personal and professional experience with a room of enthusiastic – and often critical – advocates. We also thank the Manchester Urban Institute and the University of Salford (Healthy Active Cities) for contributing funds to the event, and Muse for hosting us at their wonderful Eden at New Bailey development.