Camcycle celebrates a week of success!
The first week of December has been a great one for our small charity, as many of the projects we have been working on in the last few months have begun to bear wonderful fruit. From increased income for our work for better cycling, steps forward in local campaigns and permanent changes on our streets, here are some of our latest highlights:
1) We met National Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman
Chris has recently been appointed as a visiting fellow at the Jesus College Intellectual Forum; this week he came to speak about ‘How cycling can save the world‘. Many Camcycle staff, trustees and members were in attendance and had the chance to ask questions on cycling issues including why there is a lack of academic studies of cycling in Cambridge and what guidance Active Travel England will be producing on rural routes. We are delighted that Camcycle’s Executive Director Roxanne De Beaux has also recently joined the Intellectual Forum as a Senior Research Associate.
Through the Intellectual Forum platform, Roxanne hopes to introduce world leaders in active travel and urbanism to a Cambridge audience. She is also excited to learn from the other associates and fellows of the forum to find new inspiration to support her advocacy for active travel and to also and to raise the local, national and international profile of Camcycle. Read more in her Forum profile.
2) You helped us raise over £25,000 for Zero Carbon Streets
At the end of a magical fundraising week, your generous donations enabled us to smash through our 2023 Big Give Christmas Challenge target and raise a huge £25,400 for our Zero Carbon Streets campaign.
These contributions will help us support more communities across Cambridgeshire to work for better walking and cycling in their neighbourhoods, enabling more people to choose sustainable transport for their everyday journeys.
3) Our work with Fenland Parent Power made the Mayor’s news page
One of our Zero Carbon Streets projects has involved supporting a group of parents in Fenland to campaign for a safe cycle route between the communities of Guyhirn and March. Last month, Fenland Parent Power’s campaign took a big step forward as they met Mayor Dr Nik Johnson and Ross Lewis from Cambridgeshire County Council to present their case.
Mayor Johnson said that “increasing people’s access to safe, active travel routes around the Fens is a top priority for the Combined Authority” and he supports the proposal for a new route. The county council said that they have identified funding to begin a feasibility study and public consultation on the options.
The next step is for families to gain strong support from local councillors and the public to strengthen their case for the infrastructure funding. It is truly amazing to see how what was once a low-priority active travel link is gaining more and more support. We are so proud of what these Fenland families are achieving with the help of the Parent Power organisation and advice from Camcycle.
4) All the second tranche of experimental active travel schemes were retained
At this week’s meeting of the county council’s Highways & Transport Committee, councillors voted to retain all of the second tranche of experimental walking and cycling schemes. The modal filters on Vinery Road and Church Street, Chesterton will now go through a Traffic Regulation Order process to make them permanent, along with the one-way section on Cambridge Road in Madingley, the contra-flow cycle lane on Ambury Road in Huntingdon and the removal of the layby on East Road in Cambridge.
Interim measures at the A505/A1301 junction and Newmarket Rd/Wadloes Rd/Barnwell Rd junction will be retained, along with the traffic calming measures in Bassingbourn. The trial wand schemes on East Road and at the Trumpington Road/Lensfield Road/Fen Causeway junction will be retained and improved.
Thank you to all the Camcycle members and supporters who responded to our survey on these schemes, wrote in support of the Temporary Traffic Regulation Orders and emailed members of the Highways committee to share your views.
5) We’ve been awarded £23,000 by the Postcode Places Trust
We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded a grant from the Postcard Places Trust for our Festival of Cycling events with partners, including community stalls and our flagship Cargo Carnival. This work will help us reach families, individuals and businesses in the area, providing advice, cycle tryouts and inspiration to motivate them to start or continue to cycle. We’ll be sharing more information on this project in the new year.
6) We launched a new partnership with Enterprise Car Club
On 1 December, we announced that Camcycle has joined with Enterprise Car Club in a partnership which offers reciprocal benefits to the members of each organisation in order to support an increase in sustainable travel. We are offering existing Enterprise Car Club members a 20% reduction on individual and household memberships and Enterprise is offering Camcycle members a year’s car club membership for just £20, plus £20 driving credit. The discounts, which will apply for a year, aim to help people choose cleaner, greener modes of transport and raise awareness of the need for better options across the Cambridge region.
We’ve already had one new member as a result of this partnership and our social media posts have inspired campaigners from York, Oxford and Bristol to call for something similar in their cities.
7) Our membership is growing fast!
It was wonderful to meet so many people at the Mill Road Winter Fair last week and sign up several new members. The uptick in membership has continued over the last few days, meaning that we’ve welcomed 11 new campaigners to the Camcycle family. There’s always room for more though! Spread the word to family and friends; it’s easy to sign up online at camcycle.org.uk/membership
A huge thank you to everyone who has supported Camcycle’s work in 2023 and enabled us to achieve what we have. Our CEO, Roxanne De Beaux, said:
On behalf of Camcycle, I would like thank our members, volunteers and donors for their support, be it time, knowledge, skills or donations. These contributions have been instrumental in our efforts to improve active travel in our region and have a positive impact on the lives of so many people. The last few weeks have been a great example of what we can accomplish, with many achievements that will have a long-lasting impact on our organisation and our region. It is clear that Camcycle continues to go from strength to strength, and this will continue into the new year. I must also thank the hardworking Camcycle staff team who continually go above and beyond to facilitate and deliver this work. We are very fortunate to have such a talented team.”