A two-day Cycle City Active City event takes place tomorrow and Wednesday July at City Hall and Barkers Pool in Sheffield, when more than 600 active travel professionals will be welcomed to Sheffield by Cllr Terry Fox, Leader of Sheffield City Council and Oliver Coppard, Mayor, South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.
They will be joined by leading figures from new Department for Transport executive agency Active Travel England, who will be on hand to introduce themselves and their vision for 50% of trips in our towns and cities being made by walking, wheeling or cycling by 2030.
The event will kick off with a peloton of nurses, doctors, consultants and hospital staff riding from Sheffield’s teaching hospitals – The Royal Hallamshire and the Northern General – to the event venue at City Hall. There will also be cycling and walking tours taking place around the city on both days of the event, including visits to Hillsborough Park and Kelham Island.
Cllr Fox said:”Active travel is a key priority area for Sheffield City Council, from infrastructure to the health and wellbeing benefits for our local residents and those that work here.
“Embracing the great outdoors is an important part of our culture, influencing so much about life in Sheffield. We look forward to sharing best practice, learning from others and welcoming all Cycle City Active City delegates to our Outdoor City.”
Easier and safer active travel options help communities to choose healthy modes of travel for short trips – walking, cycling, scooting and wheeling – which in turn improve air quality and make the region’s streets safer and quieter.
South Yorkshire’s Mayor Olive Coppard said: “Cycling and walking are at the heart of my vision for a cleaner, healthier and better-connected South Yorkshire. Creating safe and convenient routes for active travel, so we don’t have to rely on cars, is vital if we want to improve the health and wellbeing of our communities and meet our ambitious targets for clean growth.
“So I couldn’t be more pleased that that this year’s Cycle City Active City is coming to Sheffield – the Outdoor City is the ideal host for the country’s biggest Active Travel event.”
Innovative private sector companies are also rising to the challenge, with schemes offering shared bikes, e-bikes, e-cargo bikes and e-scooters increasing across the country – and possibly coming to Sheffield soon….
To date, local authorities across the Sheffield region have overseen transformational active travel schemes, from the inspirational Connecting Sheffield programme, the establishment of Active Neighbourhoods across South Yorkshire, and the Active Travel Implementation Plan, which sets out how, by 2040, a fully connected network of walking and cycling routes will link the region for safe and active travel. Sheffield’s physical activity strategy, Move More, is also having great success in boosting inclusive active travel options across the region.
Active travel will also help Sheffield to become a zero-carbon city by the start of the next decade: both Sheffield City Council and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority have declared Climate Emergencies – in line with more than 525 other local authorities in the UK – affecting more than 61 million residents. In Britain around 93 per cent of the population lives in areas where the local authorities have declared a climate emergency.
