Camcycle board of trustees 2023

I love living in Cambridge. I’ve lived here for 30 years and was a student here before that. I grew up in the suburbs south of London and returned there to work for my engineering employer after graduating. I cycled in London – I’ve ridden a bike all my life – but there were some journeys that even as a confident rider I had to drive. It was one of these forced drives – to play a match for my squash team – that was the final straw. I was late, stuck in traffic on the A3, angry and frustrated, and I thought “I can’t live like this”. So my girlfriend (now my wife) and I moved back to Cambridge. It was the best decision I ever made (apart from asking her to marry me, of course).

Although miles better than most places, cycling in Cambridge was far from perfect. In fact, I’ve often wondered why so many people do ride bikes in Cambridge: it seems to be in spite of the infrastructure, not because of it.

After 20 years or so as an engineer, I was lucky enough to get a job with Cycling England, running the national Bikeability programme and other school-based initiatives. I remained involved with Bikeability until 2020, having founded The Bikeability Trust to administer the programme, which is funded with about £15m p.a. of Department for Transport funding. After stepping down from my role as CEO of The Bikeability Trust, I spent about a year working for the Department for Transport just after Gear Change was published. It was very interesting to see the DfT from the other side of the fence and I came away with deep respect for the Civil Service.

In places where cycling is normal, people seem happier. Cambridge could be a beacon in the UK for what’s possible, but we need to celebrate what we have and to keep pushing to improve everyday cycling for everyone. Camcycle can help with both of these things and with spreading cycling to the rest of the country, starting locally.

It is a rare day when I don’t ride one of my bikes: to the supermarket, out into the countryside or just around town for the sheer joy of it. When not on my bike, I’m often playing real tennis and golf, badly.

I have been a researcher/evaluator for the latter part of my professional career. I began in the education profession, gaining experience in secondary, further and tertiary education institutions. I am an Irish Scot and moved to Cambridge some twenty years ago, to take up a post at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Since that time, I have either worked in the NHS or for the NHS as an external client primarily undertaking education, research and evaluation-based commissions. More latterly, my work has moved to the area of entrepreneurship and innovation, specifically looking at evaluating scale and impact of small enterprise companies. I study Japenese and enjoy travelling in Japan. I have designed and published an ‘Essential Guidebook to Japan’. I hold the grade of 2nd dan in the martial art of judo. I live in Fulbourn and so see the benefits of cycling and having relatively lower transport congestion. I love the freedom that cycling provides and therefore want to make a contribution to better and safer cycling (for all ages and abilities) throughout Cambridgeshire and beyond.

I started cycling as a child in Spain, but fell in love with cycling as an adult when I moved to Cambridge in 2007. I was mainly a sport cyclist for many years until I became a father, when I started cycling with my daughter to her nursery. Now I fully understand that they are two different activities.

Much like other trustees, I would like active travel to be the most accessible and convenient means of transportation for all journeys in the city. This involves fully integrated transport options so that better cycling provision comes alongside better public transport and walking facilities. One area where I would particularly like to see progress is in the travel connections between villages and towns in the Cambridge periphery. To that effect, as leader of Milton Cycling Campaign, I have worked hard for better provision between Waterbeach and Cambridge, and between Impington and Milton. In Dec 2020 we also managed to obtain a £15,000 grant from South Cambs District Council to improve cycle parking facilities in the village, which resulted in over 200 new cycle parking spaces being installed in Milton and at the local secondary school (Impington Village College).

In role as a Camcycle trustee, I will support our HR processes, help shape policy and work with Camcycle’s Executive Director to improve the outreach of the organisation to villages and towns in the Greater Cambridge area.

I joined the Camcycle Board of Trustees in August 2019. Since then the campaign has had several big successes and hired new staff. I feel proud to have been part of this! One of the things I love about being involved with Camcycle is learning about the impact our charity has had in the community over the years. I want to continue to build on this legacy, working with the Board and the Camcycle team to achieve even more, better and safer cycling in and around Cambridge.

My goal for the year ahead is to continue working with Camcycle’s Executive Director on sponsorship and partnership opportunities – a project that began in 2021. Also, in 2022 I plan to develop our work around volunteer and Board recruitment.

I’ve been helping with things like newsletter delivery since shortly after I joined the campaign in 2004. I’ve been membership secretary since November 2014, which has meant that David Earl had time to develop a much better membership system for us and we’ve done lots of discussing and testing changes he’s made. I’ve enjoyed doing that and being able to contribute to helping the campaign continue to work effectively and improve life for cyclists in and around the Cambridge area.

My involvement with the magazine has expanded since I became responsible for coordinating distribution of the paper magazines from autumn 2018.

Appointed as a trustee in 2022, I bring brand strategy, communications and marketing experience to the role.

Professionally, I’m a brand and communications consultant (part-time) specialising in brand strategy to promote stakeholder engagement. My experience is a combination of commercial and NGO/non-profit organisations (including Amnesty and Fairtrade International) in ‘change’ roles to support strategy, growth, and awareness. My volunteer roles include working with Addenbrooke’s/ACT and Cambridge Sustainable Food. I’m passionate about climate change mitigation, sustainability and opportunities for young people.

Having lived in Cambridge’s Mill Road area twice, initially in my first marketing role and returning in 2017, I’ve seen massive improvements in the living environment and the cycling experience. I’m an enthusiastic rider motivated by the joy and freedom of cycling as well as its health, wellbeing and environment benefits.

As a trustee, my aim is to support broader appeal and deeper community engagement with Camcycle – especially attracting younger members, supporting business and corporate sustainability objectives and generally creating a close and ‘loved’ relationship with the community, centred on enjoyment of cycling.

I have lived in the Cambridge area for the last 20 years. I regularly cycle six miles to and from work. Having cycled in many other countries around the world, I have seen both great and not-so-great cycle infrastructure. Cambridge is still a long way from being the world-class city that I think it deserves to be. There are key things that we need to achieve to make Cambridge and its surrounding rural villages the best place to cycle in the world.

First, we need high quality cycle infrastructure in the places where people want to cycle. We need to make the case for a comprehensive primary network of cycle routes, segregated cycleways mainly along the main roads that link where we live to where we need to be. Second, we need to create policies that foster these aspirations including details sometimes forgotten such as cycle parking standards and wayfinding. As trustee, my current focus is on progressing our policy work.