Newcastle Cycling Campaign

October 2012 – newsletter

OUR MONTHLYISH UPDATE FROM THE CAMPAIGN 30 September 2012 Claire, Kat, Scott, and Tan contributed this month’s news items. Happy reading! Summer of Cycling – tell us your story ACTION Remember this? Youtube link http://youtu.be/ipHEHayNK5c So how did it go? Give us your story of finding a bike buddy. Or maybe your bike buddy would like to tell theirs. We are after some quick soundbites of your recent cycling experience. Couple of sentences will do. Be as nice or a critical as you like.

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Police & Crime Commissioner – your call

We are in the process of writing to candidates for the Police and Crime Commissioner. We will ask them to support our call for a liaison officer. There’s so much to be sorted out when it comes to policing transport matters. Recent discussions on our facebook group (open to everyone, public) and our googlegroup (members only) showed the strength of feeling that something ought to be done. There is a sense of injustice in the air. The amount of bad driving complaints we hear about from members also warrants some action. So, wait and see what the candidates have to[…]

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Awareness Training – Get them cycling, make them understand!

We are talking to Cycle Training UK (CTUK) who are running cycle awareness training courses for HGV drivers in the Hackney Borough (case study attached, below) to learn from their experience and bring their courses up to the North East. They have also worked with the taxi firm Addison Lee in London http://www.bikehub.co.uk/news/bike-to-work/addisonlee/ We believe that getting professional drivers on bicycles is the best way of making them realise how vulnerable cyclists are. Can Newcastle City Council follow in the footsteps of Hackney and cab firm? Watch this space…

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Summer of Cycling – tell us your story

Remember this? Youtube link http://youtu.be/ipHEHayNK5c So how did it go? Give us your story of finding a bike buddy. Or maybe your bike buddy would like to tell theirs. We are after some quick soundbites of your recent cycling experience. Couple of sentences will do. Be as nice or a critical as you like. Some pointers… – What’s the obstacles? Or was it easy? – What did the first ride feel like? – Will you keep riding? Your story may even be published on this website, and we are also collating a summary for summerofcycling.net. Of course your comment can[…]

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Wanted: pedal power

Thanks to a grant from the SMK and Esmée Fairbairn Foundations, we produced some fab promotional materials for the Campaign. We hope you will like our leaflets and posters (we also have a big banner we can use for events!). Another big thank you goes to Matt Jones from BinaryStar who did the design and quite a few other things for us!! Help us spread the word about the Campaign: you can download and print out our poster and put it up at your work place or your favourite community venue; feel free to hand out leaflets to friends, relatives[…]

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A week of meetings, and a festival

Some eyes and ears appear to have popped open recently. We’ve had a fair slice of cake (well, meetings, and too many at that to recall here) and we’ve learnt this: Good – we seem to agree on where we are (City is untenable for mass cycling) and where we ought to be (City fit for cycling) – Cllr Henri Murison largely agrees with the 1Plan – mandating a European style city centre, virtually car-free with a ring of car parks outside the urban core, the urban core serviced by walking, cycling and a much more effective bus system –[…]

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Taken for a ride – pedal politico (4C)

PRESS RELEASE 23.09.2012 On Tuesday 18 September, Newcastle Cycling Campaign took Cllr Henri Murison, cabinet member for Quality of Life, on a bike ride around town. Katja Leyendecker of Newcastle Cycling Campaign said “As part of our 4C = City Chief Cycling Challenge we invited city bosses to a street talk on bikes, and Henri said ‘Yes’. I think we all agreed, that it was good to experience the city’s cycling situation first hand. We were joined by liveable cities experts, Richard Smith of Action Streets and Neil Murphy of Beyond Green as well as Harvey Emms from Newcastle City[…]

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