Better Transport

• Kate Sykes send them a message
• Tel: 01539 727928
• South Lakeland Action on Climate Change

South Lakeland Action on Climate Change is a local group set up to promote awareness and action on climate change and peak oil.  We do this in a wide variety of ways from traditional campaigning (supporting local wind farms, opposing Carlisle airport, lobbying councillors) to less traditional activities like running eco-fairs, holding mass cycle rides, bike festivals, talks, film showings.

Recent successes include:

• Getting four local districts on board with the Carbon Trust’s Local Authority Carbon Management Scheme
• Launching Transition South Lakes
• Successfully overturning a decision to stop a £400,000 cycle route by holding mass cycle rides and intense lobbying (read the story of this success)
• Getting around 700 people to attend our recent Eco-Fair
• Setting up and supporting a ‘Stop Carlise Airport’ umbrella group of local organisations that, so far, has stopped the airport from going ahead

Next Meeting Date: Every second Thursday of the month at the Castle St Centre in Kendal, 7:30pm

Latest News :

May 2009:  CycleFest celebrated all things cycling and featured a variety of rides, a bike night and workshops to encourage everyone to get involved in cycling!

Staveley Green Travel Initiative
We have been awarded funding to run an exciting community transport project in the village of Staveley.

We were highly impressed by the success and amazing results coming from  the Sustainable Travel Demonstration Towns of Darlington, Peterborough and Worcester, which suggested that getting people to change their travel habits wasn't so difficult at all. When households are given individualised travel advice, it can lead to reductions in car trips of 7-25% and increased journeys by lift-sharing, public transport, cycling and walking of 10-80%.

We were so impressed in fact, that we decided to do one ourselves.

To date, all such projects have been funded by the UK Government, and with one exception have always taken place in large urban areas and been run by the Local Authority, so this will be the first time that a ‘Smart Travel’ project has been run by a community group, and in a rural village with a population of 1,300.  As such, we are really excited to see what can be achieved.  What happens when the community is given the money and asked to solve the problem themselves?

In the realm of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, car driving has always been considered to be a 'difficult one' to tackle.  We're hoping to show that this is not necessarily the case, and change travel policy across the county and the UK for the better.

How we plan to do it
The project will involve several key elements:

• Survey.  Every household will receive a survey aimed at establishing existing transport use and attitudes.  There will also be an option on the survey to opt for a visit from one of our volunteer transport planners.
• Launch events.  There will be a series of launch events across the village.  These will be celebrations and are aimed at getting everyone excited and aware of the project.
• Individual transport planning.  We are putting together a team of volunteers from the community who will undergo training in travel planning with households.  A key part of the project will then be to get as many households as possible to sign up to receive a visit from one of our volunteer travel planners.  The volunteers will then arrange to visit the house and will sit down with them and go through their current travel behaviour in detail, and to identify areas where sustainable travel options would be more appropriate/beneficial. 
• Weekly events.  Running alongside the project will be a planned series of weekly events. From bike rides, walks, workshops, film screenings, games and talks to sustainable days out by train or coach, these will be aimed at reinforcing the message and continuing the buzz.
• Personalised travel information.  For those households who do not sign up for travel planning, we will instead send them a leaflet containing sustainable travel tips and customised train/bus timetables.
• Cycling.  Free cycle training will be offered to children and adults, and free refurbished bikes to those on low incomes. There will also be opportunities to loan and try out cycling equipment such as folding mountain bikes (for bus journeys to a favourite destination in the Lakes).  Several people in the village will be trained in cycle maintenance and will offer this as a free service.
• Travel website.  A community website will be established containing a range of information on smarter travel choices such as a village-specific lift-share site, local bus and train timetables, local cycle and walking routes and more.
• Work and school based travel planning.  We will also be doing travel planning with the local primary school and the largest employer in the village, Cumbria Tourism.
• Evaluating success.  This will take the form of an additional survey that we will ask those households who undertook travel planning to complete. This will happen at least six months after the project has finished. Will any behaviour change be permanent?

The project has been generously funded by the Cumbria Strategic Partnership, Lake District National Park Sustainable Development Fund and the South Lakes Strategic Partnership.

We want to encourage groups around the country to take the initiative and launch a similar project.  All resources developed during the project are available for others to use.  Please contact us or download them.