Stall Petition

This article was published in 1997, in Newsletter 12.

Visitors to our Saturday stall in the Market Square will know that we’ve been encouraging members of the public to sign our petition, which states:

‘We, who presently drive cars into Cambridge, would happily cycle instead, were adequate, safe, and convenient cycle routes provided.’

We recently reached 600 signatures, and decided at our April meeting that we’d present the petition to Brian Smith, who is the County Council’s Director of Environment and Transport. On May 8th, Dave Earl and I went to Shire Hall to present the petition.

Receiving the petition, Brian Smith said that the County Council recognised that just putting cyclists and pedestrians together on the pavement was no longer the answer, and that dedicated facilities were important.

Petition.jpg (9k)

We did very well for media coverage:

  • three minutes of live interview on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire,
  • a photo and article in the Cambridge Evening News,
  • some sound-bites on BBC TV’s lunch-time and evening local news, showing the presentation.

We used the event to publicise the Grand Cycle Ride for the following weekend.

The size of the petition also qualifies us to make a 3 minute presentation to the Environment and Transport Committee, at the County Council. We have a slot booked for Thursday 12 June, and Dave Earl will use the time to highlight the most important points from our Manifesto, and from the National Cycling Strategy. We need to persuade the new Conservative committee members that the National Cycling Strategy, a Tory initiative, needs local support.

Clare