Newsletter Dec 2020
Southampton Cycling Campaign Newsletter – Dec 2020
Welcome to the December 2020 Southampton Cycle Campaign newsletter. We hope you are all well and able to keep cycling.
The next Southampton Cycling Campaign meeting will be on Zoom on Monday 14 December at 7:30pm. See https://www.southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk/join-us to join our group, if you didn’t get this direct from us.
We have scrapped all membership fees and now just suggest donations, so if you have a regular payment to us please feel free to leave it or alter it. Do forward this newsletter to others who may be interested in joining, as we’d love to gain more members.
We share articles on our Facebook page and use our mailing list to communicate about what’s going on in Southampton. Please join, come along to a meeting and join our mailing list! (Members are able to join our secure email list once you have attended a meeting, or if that is an issue an active member can vouch for you. The day before your first meeting, please email membership@southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk to get the zoom link.)
Southampton’s Green Transport Recovery Plan.
Your councillors need positive feedback on the changes currently being delivered as part of the city’s Green Transport Recovery Plan, as we’ve been told the complaints are many! Thanks to everyone who has emailed already. If you haven’t, please do so ASAP. Find your councillor
Please copy both traffic.orders.legal@southampton.gov.uk , roadworks@southampton.gov.uk and councillor.s.leggett@southampton.gov.uk into your email.
Please say that you support more Shared Spaces and Active Travel Zones such as at Bedford Place and St Denys, as well as supporting the new cycle and bus lanes that are so sensible and needed to encourage more active travel. The lanes often make walking safer and provide social distancing measures. You could explain why you or people you know are more confident to cycle now. It will be a lost opportunity if any more temporary lanes get removed.
As always, there is a vocal minority, so please take time to share positive feedback and please encourage others to. If you haven’t seen the changes at St Denys, here’s a video of the scheme, which had a detailed consultation with residents https://youtu.be/-ZwV9cYa3b4 Other great videos are at The Cycleways of Southampton
If time, please also send a short letter to letters@dailyecho.co.uk supporting the “active travel”. You may want to avoid saying “cyclists” – but say space for people on foot or on bikes or on scooters…
Southampton Street Space.
Southampton Street Space was formed in response to the visit we had from Waltham Forest Cycle Campaign. We were advised to make a group that linked all the active travel groups and supporters together. Furlough gave one of us the time to create Southampton Street Space, just in time to support and comment on the City Council’s Green Transport Recovery Plan. The campaign calls on Southampton City Council for a more equitable use of the city’s streets. We feel that over the years our most visible public realm, that we as residents contribute to and make use of daily, and which connects us all together – the city’s road network – has become dominated by cars to the detriment of all other users.
Groups such as Southampton Street Space are important for the city, not only to hold the city council to the highest possible standard of active travel provision, but also to act as a voice for the silent majority who we know from polling support the introduction of better infrastructure for active travel within the city. We want to see a fairer and safer network for those who walk, run, cycle, wheel, scoot or skate. A safer network for those people who for whatever reason can’t or don’t wish to drive within the city.
With Covid-19, the council saw both a need and an opportunity to provide more protected space for active travel to allow non-drivers to go about their daily lives while maintaining social distancing. They produced their Green Transport Recovery Plan which set out the mostly-temporary measures which they would be taking.
The campaign agrees with the city council’s recovery plan in principle, but argues that even more could be done to support active travel. So we wrote an Open Letter to the city council, signed by a number of residents, businesses and other organisations within the city, calling on the council to provide more safe space for people walking especially on high streets and around shops and cafes and to limit speeds to 20mph in those areas.
We also asked for a comprehensive network of ‘Active Travel Corridors’ on main roads connecting with the existing ‘pop-up lanes’ to provide safe, direct access for people travelling on bikes, scooters, skateboards, mobility chairs, hoverboards etc.
Finally we asked the city council to create a network of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods with cars prevented from speeding through residential streets, using planters or bollards, that open residential and local shopping streets for communities to play, walk, cycle and socialise on.
Follow the campaign and get in touch via Twitter, Facebook and email. Organisers are particularly interested in bringing local influencers and celebrity contacts on board. If this is you, or if it sounds like someone you know, please let them know.
By Andy Kinge
Active Travel Fund Tranche 2 Results.
Southampton City Council has just been awarded £1.225 million by the Department for Transport as part of the second round of Active Travel Funding. When combined with the first round of funding, Southampton has received a grand total of just under £1.5 million from the Government to promote cycling and walking during the Coronavirus pandemic. This means that, on a pounds-per-head basis, Southampton’s bid was one of the most successful in England.
The first round of the Active Travel Fund made it possible for the Council’s Green Transport Recovery Plan to be enacted, creating the pop-up cycle lanes on The Avenue and Hill Lane, as well as creating space for people on Bedford Place. This money from the second round will go towards:
- Creating a safe cycling route from Central Station to Upper Shirley, General Hospital, Lordshill and Adanac Park.
- Creating two new Active Travel Zones around The Polygon and St Mark’s School, Shirley, prioritising walking and cycling over driving.
- Extending and adding protection to the current painted cycle lane on Winchester Road between Bassett Avenue and Hill Lane
- Creating new “Park & Travel” sites at Bitterne and Lordshill
More widely, Hampshire County Council also received £3.28 million, so here’s hoping for safer links to nearby towns and villages. https://cyclingindustry.news/how-much-active-travel-fund-cash-did-your-local-authority-score-in-latest-tranche/
https://cyclingindustry.news/how-much-active-travel-fund-cash-did-your-local-authority-score-in-latest-tranche/
By Michael Dodds
Bike Repairs.
Bike Doctors can give your bike a free safety check (excluding parts) and can also give advice on maintenance. See myjourneyhampshire.com/events and www.montys.org.uk/bike-hub/4594895028 for what’s happening including Bike Kitchen on Wed eves in Shirley and Bike Dr at Monty’s in Sholing.
Cycling and driving trends during Covid.
If you’re interested in the impact of the pandemic on travel behaviour, you can use this cycling campaigner’s web app to track national trends in cycling, driving and other forms of mobility. The data is currently national, but if any fellow campaigners have access to data on local trends, these would be warmly received. Go to the app
By Christopher C Brown
Leading rides and delivery rides.
I’ve usually just ridden by bike to get to places, but have recently enjoyed going on rides for the fun of it, with people informally coming with me to learn good routes. First I led about ten Greenpeace members to Itchen Valley Country Park, then 3 to Royal Victoria Country Park, then 5 to Eling Tide Mill and Sunnyfields Organic Farm. The people I’ve been leading have really appreciated the chance to learn new routes – and one person did the same route again 4 times the next week! If you are short of cycling buddies, please contact us. There is also a group of people who “used” to do our Cycling Campaign regular Sunday rides, who are informally riding faster and further than me, so just ask!
During lockdown I organised cyclists to help take fabric to and from people sewing scrubs, headbands and scrubs-bags for the NHS. We saved a lot of car journeys. I sourced 2 tins of buttons from the scrap store (thank you Scrap Store) then cycled around delivering them (sorry Amazon, I stopped people buying buttons off you). The buttons were easier as no weight to carry – but again, no need for unnecessary car journeys. Thanks to Will, Johnnie, Andy & Isabel who helped out. If you’d like to do more of this kind of thing, we think there are probably so many car journeys that we could stop, if we double up with our cycling for fun/exercise. We even got in the Echo!
By Lyn Brayshaw, chair of Southampton Cycling Campaign
Routes on our web site.
Last but not least, an article from our Vice-Chair:
We think it is important to promote and cement grounds for improvements to routes that are well used by members and other cyclists. Many of these may not follow, or only partly follow, the SCN routes. So if you have routes that fit the bill you can have your routes added to our library by following the instructions at www.southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk/suggested-routes/ or send to Johnnie at membership@southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk Please list key districts & rd names in the description, and don’t start or finish routes at your home for security reasons. You can also search to access the routes for use and download as a GPX file or a PDF.
By Johnnie Dellow, vice-chair of Southampton Cycling Campaign
Stop press: Mayflower Quarter/Leisure World.There are a couple of big issues with this scheme, which if given the chance could be the opportunity for some of the hopes, wishes and dreams we have for Southampton. If you’d like to be involved in a planning meeting please email lizbatten44@gmail.comIf you don’t want to hear from us again, please email asking to be removed from the list. On the other hand, if you’d like to get more involved, please come along to our next meeting or contact us! Thanks! membership@southamptoncyclingcampaign.org.uk