All you need is love (for cycling): Cycling UK at the Labour Party conference

The torrential rains of last week didn’t stop thousands of Labour party members, activists and lobbyists from streaming to Liverpool, armed with banners, leaflets and cautious optimism. Sarah and I joined them for three days of fringe events (including two of our own) and meeting with MPs.

To kick things off, we co-hosted a panel event on the connections between air quality and active travel (walking, wheeling and cycling) together with the Healthy Air Coalition and the Labour Climate and Environment Forum.

Sarah, Olivia Blake (Sheffield Hallam MP), Rezina Chowdhury (Lambeth Council deputy leader), Shanika Mahendran (Milton Keynes councillor and Labour Climate and Environment Forum programme manager), Dr Camilla Kingdon (paediatrician and Healthy Air Coalition chair) and Mete Coban (Deputy Mayor of London for Environment and Energy) spoke passionately about the urgency of replacing car journeys for cleaner modes like cycling and walking, as well as electrifying buses and trains.

A theme that emerged throughout the conversation was that air quality is a social justice issue: people who contribute the least to toxic air are often the most impacted. Panellists also agreed that the public lacks awareness about the health dangers of air pollution, which is the single largest environmental factor in public health in the UK.

Following the panel, we braved the downpour for a walk and bike ride around the docks together with Living Streets and Labour Cycles and Walks.

Before setting off we got to hear from Ruth Cadbury (new chair of the Transport Select Committee), Lilian Greenwood (new Minister for the Future of Roads) and Simon O’Brien (Liverpool City Region cycling and walking commissioner) on their visions for getting more people to cycle.

Living Streets’ public affairs and campaigns coordinator Zak Viney then led part of the group on a walk while Cycling UK’s public affairs officer Tomos Owens led a bike ride, attended by Fabian Hamilton, co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking. Voi kindly provided e-bikes for other attendees.

I was impressed by how many other events at the conference focused on active travel and public transport. Clearly, there are many people who want to move around in healthier, more sustainable ways and it appears that the new UK government is listening.

Simon Lightwood, the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Transport, highlighted the critical role of cycling and walking in the Labour government’s health and economic missions.

There was also a lot of enthusiasm for cleaner, greener transport from Labour metro-mayors like Oliver Coppard, Tracey Brabin and Andy Burnham, who are all using greater devolution to improve public transport and active travel in their regions.

In meetings with MPs such as Simon Opher and David Burton-Sampson we again heard that decision-makers understand the importance of getting more people cycling for several reasons, especially preventative health.

We left Liverpool excited about the potential for more political action to increase cycling levels, but there is a huge amount of work to be done. Conversations frequently turned to the improvement in cycling infrastructure and consequent increase in cycling in London.

The reality is that in much of the rest of the UK, progress has been much slower, and cycling has yet to be normalised. Cycling UK will continue pushing the UK government to put its money where its mouth is and invest in cycling.