Council surrender and Velolife lives again

So it came to pass that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead finally gave up their vindictive two-year campaign and last week withdrew their application for an injunction - and with it the threat of a jail sentence - against the owner of Velolife cycling café.

But it took the sustained joint effort of Britain’s two biggest cycling bodies, 
Cycling UK and British Cycling - who wheeled into action lawyers Leigh Day - before the council surrendered.

Here’s how Cycling UK summarised the case made against Velolife.

Lee Goodwin’s café and workshop in Warren Row, Berkshire, was made the subject of an Enforcement Notice by the council in October 2017, following a complaint from a neighbour. In July this year the Council applied for an injunction against Mr Goodwin alleging breaches of the Enforcement Notice, which could have resulted in imprisonment for him if cyclists met at his premises.
Perhaps we’ll never know what exactly occurred that finally persuaded the council to back down, but clearly Leigh Day played a major part in preventing the case reaching court.

This was a “victory for common sense” said Cycling UK.

The lone resident’s complaint was that his or her right of access to his or her house was blocked by cyclists outside the café. That’s a fair enough complaint to be followed up.

And it was, by the looks of it, for a sign was posted outside the café requesting no one gather there.

But the whole thing started to go mad when the council claimed that Velolife would be in breach of the planning application if organised meetings or rides began or ended there.  And yet they were unable to explain what exactly constituted a meeting or an organised ride!

And then the story descended into farce as they sent in inspectors to check on cyclists arriving and departing!

What was it that had so spooked the council?
Was this a grudge thing? A council bigwig’s brush with a badly behaved person or persons on bikes?
Taking it out on the whole wider cycling community?

Was this the fear of the unknown? Of  something different in their backyard?  
This strange tribe gathering in their big shiny helmets and tights and colourful jerseys and jackets and sparkling machines, walking awkwardly in their cleated shoes. 

And worst thing of all, smiling and laughing, joking, voices raised in greeting, perhaps drowning out the comforting throbbing noise of traffic.

Perhaps the resident and the council saw those big helmets and shiny skinny clothing and thought, Christ, the aliens are back.

For there are some who would have us believe we were visited by others from some far off place in Biblical times, teaching our forefathers  engineering, astronomy, maths and probably Bingo and Morris Dancing as well. For there is no doubt these activities are the product of a much higher intelligence. 
As a former club hill-climb champion I can only appreciate and envy them their anti-gravity propulsion drives.

Whatever, it is certainly true that people are often spooked by change. Take the story a few years ago of the fear generated among residents who began to shake with rage at the proposal to run heavy freight trains along the hitherto barely used railway line at the bottom of their gardens of their big 
houses.

The fact that the railway had been there 100 years before houses were built alongside it seemed to have escaped them. Bit like moving to live on a main road and then complaining about the traffic noise.

Or people who move into a flat opposite a pub and get a cob on when the place erupts with loud rock music on two evenings a week.

Or this one. City people moving to live in the countryside and then moaning about farm smells; moles digging up manicured lawns; deer trampling flower beds.

The railway was there first, so was the pub, so was the farm and so were the animals. Get used to it.

Back in the 19^th century cycles made transport history by becoming the first mechanically propelled machines on the roads, providing individuals – for the first time ever - with the means to travel far and wide. Including to Windsor and Maidenhead, where they might like to find refreshment and horror of horrors, meet with other cyclists!  Get used to it.
The new Millennium has seen a cycling Renaissance. Velolife is a celebration of that.

Bristol 15th best cycling city in global survey

BRISTOL confirmed its claim to be Britain’s most popular city for cyclists when placing 15^th worldwide in a 90-city Global Bicycles Cities Index - carried out by German insurance company Coya -  reports Cycling UK.


Edinburgh was rated next best British city, placed 54^th worldwide, while London was rated third best in the UK,  62^nd overall. Dublin in Ireland was placed 60^th in the overall table.


No prizes for guessing which city topped the survey,

Yes, Utrecht in Holland, that Utopian cycling city to many eyes here in the UK.

Next best was Munster in Germany, 2^nd.  Antwerp, Belgium, placed 3rd, Copenhagen, Denmark was ranked 4^th, Amsterdam in Holland 5^rd and Malmo, Sweden, 6^th.
(photo by Elina Sazonova)

According to Coya, Utrecht comes out top for several reasons. For a start, over half of the city’s residents regularly use a cycle. There are low accident rates and few bike thefts.

The authorities created a bike-friendly city with a network of covered and open air cycle paths linking many areas, with purpose built bridges, subways and roundabouts designed for cyclists.

Utrecht also boasts the world’s largest cycle park which by next year will be extended to include 33,000 bike parking spaces.

Utrecht, to many of us in Britain, represents cycling Utopia.

What’s Bristol got going for it?

Well, in 2008, Bristol was named Britain’s first Cycling City stealing the thunder from Cambridge, Edinburgh and London who all like to think they are top dogs for cyclists in the UK, where investment in cycling nationally remains piss poor.

Currently the government claims to be spending £7 per head of population (England) which is quite a jump from what it was a few years ago when it was about £2 per head and falling. Even so it remains far below what the Dutch invest in cycling which is now £25 per head.
As I recall it, funding would have to be at least £10 per head in the UK before we would see an  appreciable increase in the number cycling utility trips made. It's not just about building cycle lanes, it's about making roads and specifically junctions  everywhere safer to use.

In the absence of  any decent government funding to make the roads safer for cycling - estimated to run to £billions but still mere peanuts in annual transport budget – it is left to those cities with the political gumption to do what they can with moderate sums offered by the government.

In this way Bristol received £19m a few years ago and £7 million more recently, enabling them to put down cycle lanes on many streets, including Dutch-style segregated lanes.

It is most appropriate Bristol should be leading the way. It is thanks to the former local pressure group Cyclebag that the 12-mile Bristol to Bath  cycling  and walking route along a disused railway was built in the 1970s. 
This led to the creation of Sustrans 
(the Sustainable Transport charity based in Bristol) famous for creating the 16,000 mile national cycling and walking route.