Cycling UK has outlined its five-year strategy in an announcement this past week.
The aim is simple: to get more people to recognise the wellbeing, health, and environmental benefits of cycling, even if they don’t cycle themselves.
To coincide with the strategy announcement, the charity has also released a film showcasing the positive impact cycling can have on communities across the UK.
Working with an author and poet from Leeds and a production company, the film emphasises how cycling helps everyone.
With five strategic objectives, the charity will focus on improving public perceptions of cycling, boosting the diversity of cycling, making cycling a more positive experience, increasing transport choice, and further raising the profile of the organisation and increasing its charitable impact.
With cycling becoming another focal point of the culture wars, Cycling UK is aware that it has a responsibility to create a groundswell of wider public support for cycling.
This public support will help make shared road space safer and engage and persuade policymakers to introduce cycling-friendly policies and investment, recognising its potential to build happier, healthier and greener communities.
Cycling UK’s five-year strategic objectives:
- Improve perceptions of cycling so that everyone sees the benefits
- Boost the number and diversity of people who cycle
- Make cycling an even more positive experience
- Increase transport choice by enabling and encouraging more people to cycle local journeys
- Achieve greater impact by becoming the best possible charity we can be
Sarah Mitchell, chief executive of Cycling UK, said: “The next five years is a pivotal time for us to demonstrate the wider benefits of cycling. As some politicians have sought to reframe cycling as a culture war issue over the past year, using rhetoric to divide all road users, we are acutely aware of our responsibility to remind people of the overwhelming positive impact of cycling.
“We already know cycling is a fantastic transport option for millions of people across the UK, and we want even more people to see how it can improve public health, boost wellbeing and enhance our environment.
“Cycling UK has delivered decades of community and campaigning work, and we have a proven track record of making change happen. We are proud of the accomplishments we’ve already made to make the UK greener and healthier, and with our new strategy, we are committed to having an even greater impact in the coming years.”
