About the speakers at Cycle City Active City Sheffield

Oliver Coppard

Mayor of South Yorkshire

Oliver Coppard was elected as mayor of South Yorkshire in May 2022

Brian Deegan

Director of Inspections, Active Travel England

Brian Deegan is the Director of Inspections at Active Travel England.  He is one of the UK’s leading experts in active travel design and helped write the Cycling Level of Service and Healthy Street Check for Designers. He was co-author of the London Cycling Design Standards and the EU Cycling Strategy. He is currently heading a team of inspectors ensuring design quality on several billion pounds of government investment in active travel infrastructure.

Dame Sarah Storey

Active Travel Commissioner, Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Sarah joined Greater Manchester as their second Active Travel Commissioner after three years working in South Yorkshire. She is also a non-executive director at the Department for Transport, helping them understand the way we all travel. As well as being an everyday cyclist, Sarah is a mum of two who walks and cycles with her children regularly.

Accessibility has been a key theme of all of her work so far and she wants to make sure that we design all of our infrastructure so that it is inclusive and leaves nobody out. Sarah will be following on from Chris Boardman in Greater Manchester and a key priority will be to Refresh the Mission.

Sarah
Guest

Regional Director, Streets, Central Region, AECOM

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Sarah leads the Central Streets team and has over 25 years experience of designing and delivering urban transport schemes, ranging from light rail and bus priority, through to town centre improvements and active travel schemes. With a varied and extensive portfolio of projects, she understands the challenges of delivering high quality active travel schemes in a constrained urban environment.

She is passionate that communication, collaboration and understanding is key to drive forward schemes that clients, stakeholders groups and the public can fully endorse.

Sarah will be speaking on the Woodstock Road co-production exercise undertaken with Oxfordshire County Council.

Georgia Yexley

General Manager UKI,

TIER Mobility

Now in her second micro-mobility company with Unicorn status, Georgia has worked in partnership with hundreds of cities across the globe, to reach their active and sustainable transport goals through micro-mobility. A firm believer that collaboration and partnership underpin sustainable services, Georgia now heads up TIER’s business and partnership with Cities across the UK & Ireland.

Georgia is a passionate advocate for inclusion and accessibility, and contributes to raising the volume of women and underrepresented groups in tech & mobility both in and outside of the workplace

Neil
Webster

Associate Director,

Remit Consulting LLP

Neil is a Director at Remit Consulting. He focuses on real estate and active travel strategies for large organisations - public and private. He is currently assisting corporates, health Trusts and local authorities on their estate transformation programmes.

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How real estate and the workplace interfaces with active travel has been an interest of Neil’s for over a decade. He authored the original (2017) and more recent (2022) The Market Cycles reports for the British Council for Offices (BCO), leads tours of workplace cycling facilities (ReTour) and was a Trustee of London Cycling Campaign from 2017 to 2020. More recently he led a team reviewing the cycling facilities of over 700 buildings.

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Not surprisingly he may be found on a bike from time to time!

Martin Lucas - Smith

Developer & Director, CycleStreets Ltd

Martin Lucas-Smith is Developer and Director at CycleStreets Ltd. Working with colleague Simon Nuttall, our analysis work has resulted in the first ever mapping of modal filters and Low-Traffic Neighbourhoods across the UK, demonstrating the very widespread nature of these traffic management measures.

CycleStreets Ltd creates bicycle routing and advocacy tools. Our data/routing is used in systems such as the Propensity to Cycle Tool and in apps like Citymapper. We’re OpenStreetMap experts. We’ve also created sites like StreetFocus (UK-wide planning application data, matched to S106 project proposals), and WidenMyPath for capturing citizen ideas.

Contacts:

Martin Lucas-Smith

info@cyclestreets.net

01223 701901

www.cyclestreets.org

Kerry McDonald

LDP Senior Project Manager, Active Essex

Kerry McDonald has over 25 years’ experience in the sport and physical activity industry in the UK. Kerry is currently co-designing the delivery of the Essex Local Delivery Pilot (LDP), one of 12 LDPs that form part of a ground-breaking £100m programme funded by Sport England. The Essex LDP is tackling population levels of physical inactivity using a whole system change approach between 2017 – 2025.

Kerry is a high level strategic thinker and operator. He is highly competent at building business relationships with a wide range of agencies, including NGB’s, government departments, local authorities, and funders. Kerry is an excellent public speaker, and he has represented StreetGames at many high-profile conferences and seminars. Kerry is a specialist in the field of sport and regeneration. He was previously senior manager for Sport England for over 10 years (2003-2013).

Kerry co-founded the UK youth sports charity StreetGames in 2005 and played a significant role in the huge success of StreetGames between 2005 and 2017. He played a fundamental role in the development of the StreetGames charity, now positioned as one of the most prominent youth sports charities in the UK, with a network of over 700 projects.  Kerry managed the fundraising that secured over £35m for StreetGames. Jane Ashworth, StreetGames ex-Chief Executive, commented, “Kerry is a fantastic bid writer. He knows all the tricks of the trade, inside out and back to front. He has exceptional ability”.

Phillip
Ellis

CEO and Co-Founder,

Beryl

Philip has grown Beryl as Co-Founder, leading the company to be the UKs largest micromobility company.

Philip has built up a significant depth of industry knowledge, leading the development and delivery of technology and safety projects for the global bike sharing and micro-mobility industry since 2014, including the delivery of innovations to TfL, the Citibike system in New York, the Bixi Montreal system and now mobilising Greater Manchester cycle hire scheme

As CEO of Beryl, Philip is a recognised leader within the UK’s broader technology sector and has participated in UK Government tech programmes such as Upscale at Tech City UK and London Stock Exchange Elite Programme. Under Philip’s leadership, the Beryl Bike Share business launched with a commitment to delivering shared bike/e-bike and micro-mobility systems in partnership with local authorities, at a time when much of the industry was focused on rapid deployments and limited control.

Rachel Beesley

Senior Transport Planner (Appraisal) Transport for Greater Manchester

Rachel Beesley is a Senior Transport Planner (Appraisal) at Transport for Greater Manchester. She has worked in Transport for 16 years in a variety of roles, including a year spent with ARRB groups in Melbourne, Australia.

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While working at TRL Rachel was involved with the testing of pedestrian count down timers, and cycle trials including;, light segregation, cycle specific traffic signals, bus stop by-passes and Dutch style roundabouts.

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Rachel’s currently role has seen her bring together existing active mode appraisal tools into one user friendly tool, and supporting the ten districts of Greater Manchester in developing their economic case

Caroline Tait

Researcher,
Data-Driven Policy Development,

University of Leeds

Dr Caroline Tait is a former GP who will shortly be a Consultant in Public Health. Her passions include improving public health through active travel, tackling inequalities and addressing the wider determinants of health. She is currently studying for an Integrated Masters and PhD at the University of Leeds. 

Her PhD is focused on cycling infrastructure analysis using big data approaches with her latest paper 'Is cycling infrastructure in London safe and equitable?  Evidence from the  Cycling Infrastructure Database​' about to be published in the Journal of Transport and Health. 

Matt Cunliffe

Public Health Programmes & Commissioning Manager,

St. Helens Council 

St.Helens Council – Public Health Programmes & Commissioning Manager – leading on healthy weight, physical activity and falls prevention.

Promoting healthy lifestyles within local communities and empowering those communities by given them a voice to identify change. Working in partnership with key stakeholders to deliver the best intervention for local communities. Previous Outdoor Education Co-ordinator for Local Authority.

Jessica Matthew

Co-Director, Local Transport,  Roads, Places and Environment Group,

​Department for Transport 

Jessica Matthew is Co-Director in Local Transport, Department for Transport.  The directorate’s remit is wide, covering a number of PM priorities including: the Levelling Up Fund, buses, active travel (cycling), accessibility of the transport network for people with disabilities, major local infrastructure and highways maintenance.

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In 2020, Jessica was temporary Director of Strategy and Private Office, covering a maternity leave.  She successfully led DfT’s Spending Review negotiations, jointly with the Finance Director, obtaining a very good settlement.

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Prior to that she was Deputy Director for Rail Environment and Digital at the Department for Transport, focusing on decarbonising the rail sector and transforming rail signaling.  She has held numerous previous positions in the Department for Transport and what is now called the Department for Communities and Local Government.

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She was also once private secretary to Chris Mullin MP, and therefore appears in his published diaries A View from the Foothills.

Josh
Grantham

Infrastructure Campaigner,

CamCycle

Josh blends a skillset in active travel, sustainability, engineering & land development to campaign for more, better and safer cycling. He turned his focus to community centred design and zero carbon streets after completing an MPhil in Engineering for Sustainable Development from Cambridge University. His thesis focussed on the delivery of future urban spaces; particularly considering car-free development and the collaboration of engineers, transport planners, and urban designers. When he’s not cycling for work, he’s often doing it for pleasure. A keen cycle tourer, poor racer, and two wheeled urban design commentator. 

Antony de Heveningham

Mobiity Consultant,

​Beate Kubitz 

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Antony de Heveningham is a sustainable transport researcher and consultant based in West Yorkshire. In April 2020 he helped to establish Cargodale, one of the UK's few non-urban cargo bike delivery services, which is now a Community Interest Company and a living wage employer operating in three very hilly locations.

As well as cargo bike delivery, his areas of specialism include walking and cycling policy, future mobility, and transport decarbonisation. He is a director of Cargodale and Beate Kubitz Associates.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/antony-de-heveningham/

Inspector Kevin Smith

Sheffield Neighbourhood Policing team, South Yorkshire Police

Kevin joined South Yorkshire Police in 2006 after completing a PhD. at Sheffield Hallam University.  His PhD. Thesis was published in 2007 to a favourable TES review, and is still available on Amazon if you have a spare 80 quid .  Sheffield born and bred he was keen to serve the public of Sheffield, so was naturally posted to Barnsley.  He has worked in Response Policing, Neighbourhoods, CID and intelligence and major crime.  In 2017 he was promoted to the rank of Detective Inspector, and In 2020 he was posted to the North West area of Sheffield.  He has used his neighbourhood policing role to renew the Police’s use of pedal cycles, both as an effective and efficient way of travelling, but also to reduce emissions and improve wellbeing amongst officers.  He introduced the “Close Pass” operation to South Yorkshire Police Neighbourhood teans, and developed and refined the operation to include group rides and volunteers.  In 2021 he managed to keep up with Dame Sarah Storey for a full hour in a Close Pass operation, and also got a mention on the DC Rainmaker blog, both of which he claims as career highlights.      

Beccy Marston

Head of Projects, See.Sense

Beccy is the Head of Projects at See.Sense, leading their global cycling and micromobility technology and data insight programmes.

An active travel specialist with over 13 years experience of delivering behaviour change programmes, having worked for Cycling UK, TfWM, BikeRight!, AECOM and The Active Wellbeing Society. Notable programmes include; Local Sustainable Transport Fund cycle delivery, Safe Urban Driver Training, Bikeability, and lead consultant for the expansion of equitable free bikes programmes across England.

Beccy sits on the Bikeability Trusts Advisory Group and is passionate about making cycling safer and more equitable and accessible for all.

Roberta Fusco

Interim Director of Policy and Communications, Living Streets

Roberta has over 20 years’ experience in policy and communications roles gained across public sector and charity including at the Cabinet Office, Transport for London, London Borough of Sutton, the British Heart Foundation and Charity Finance Group. Roberta enjoys volunteering and has been a school governor for a number of years and for six years was Chair of her local National Autistic Society branch. Roberta is responsible for external influencing at Living Streets, including campaigns, policy, engagement including through our network of local groups, communications, press, public affairs and marketing.

Greg Fell

Director of Public Health, Sheffield

Greg Fell is the Director of Public Health in Sheffield. He graduated from Nottingham University with a degree in biochemistry and physiology in 1993. He has worked as a social researcher in a maternity unit; a number of roles in health promotion and public health before joining the public health training scheme. Greg worked as a consultant in public health in Bradford in the PCT then Bradford council. Since Feb 2016 he has worked for Sheffield City Council as the Director of Public Health for the city. Greg was also appointed to the role of Vice President to the Association of Directors of Public Health (ADPH) in December 2021.

Simon Irons

Associate Director,

Bicycle Association

Simon Irons has led the development of the BA’s market data service since early 2018, and is also leading work on new initiatives, such as the Local Bicycle Economy project, to support the industry. Simon was the Group Cycling Director at Halfords and has worked for over 20 years in senior commercial positions at Asda, Argos, and 2 Sisters Food Group.

Scott Cain

Associate Director,

Bicycle Association

Scott leads the Bicycle Association’s programme to develop a UK Bike Valley to help on-shore more of the innovation, production and assembly of bikes, e-bikes and light electric vehicles, as well as the UK cycle industry body’s work on smart and connected cycling and environments.

At the Connected Places Catapult, the UK’s innovation accelerator for cities, transport and place leadership, Scott is an Associate, leading on active travel as a high-growth market opportunity. He is also a Non Exec at Global Entrepreneurship Network, a co-founder of the active travel technology business, Active Things, and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow at UCL’s Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis.

Formerly, Scott was Chief Business Officer at the Catapult, and CEO of Enterprise UK. Early cycling involved a Raleigh Chopper which he loved and a Grifter that he did not. 

Flora McFarlane

Business Development & Policy Manager,

Vivacity Labs

Flora is a business development and policy manager at Vivacity Labs, providing local authorities with critical evidence needed for bold, ambitious Active Travel projects to succeed. With a background in Micromobility and community campaigning, she sees the strategic use of data as a powerful tool to communicate before and after insights to stakeholders. It's not unusual to hear her commenting on the width of pavements or the unending joy of cycling.

Vivacity’s sensors use proprietary machine learning algorithms to enable accurate multi-modal detection and analysis, providing an evidence base for behavioural insights. This anonymous data supports Active Travel schemes across the UK.

Susan Latham

Account Director, Mobilityways

Susan Latham, Mobilityways Account Director and Commutologist, on a mission to make zero carbon commuting a reality. Susan supports local authorities, education establishments and the third sector across the UK to measure, reduce and report on their commute emissions. With her passion for the customer experience and many years in business development, she consults and brings the best solutions to her customers. Before joining Liftshare she held various commercial roles at Crown Commercial Service, Getty Images and The Economist. She joined the Liftshare/Mobilityways team in September 2021, cycles into work and is about to invest in an e-bike.

Sarah Simpson

Director,

Royal HaskoningDHV

Sarah is Royal HaskoningDHV’s lead for Safe and Active Travel in the UK. Sarah has spent the past 20 years advising private and public sector clients on transport and highways matters relating to new developments and infrastructure projects in the UK and overseas. She regularly acts as Technical Advisor, peer reviewer, and Expert Witness.

As co-author of the Safe Roads for All report published in August 2021, Sarah’s most recent work has included collaborating with road safety NGOs to deliver proof of concept projects, incorporating Safe System principles and iRAP protocols into different areas of transport planning practice.

Emily Reed

Public Health Registrar, Sheffield City Council

Emily is a public health registrar at Sheffield City Council, with a background as a clinical doctor. She works on a variety of public health projects but has a particular interest in climate and health. She recently collaborated with a regional consortium of local authority colleagues and behavioural scientists to explore barriers and facilitators to active travel in Yorkshire and the Humber. The study conducted a randomised control trial to demonstrate how motivational and goal setting interventions can increase rates of active travel for short local journeys.

Sally Slade

Transport Strategy, Leicester City Council

I have worked for Leicester City Council for 29 years.   In that time, I have set up the Safer Routes to School programme, fostered relationships with public health establish joint work on delivering active travel initiative.    I am currently the Team Leader for Active Travel.   Within the team we deliver travel planning for businesses and travel roadshows for employees; work closely with schools to deliver walk to school incentives, park and strides, school streets, Bikeability, cycle to school incentives and learn to ride.    Community activities include led walks, led rides, adult cycle training, Ride Leicester Festivals and Walk Leicester Festivals and the delivery of experimental low traffic neighbourhoods.

Jenny May

Director, VINU

Jenny May joined VINU as senior manager in 2016 with more than 15 years’ experience of project management and building sustainable collaborations. In 2001 Jenny graduated from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, with a Master’s degree in International Relations. After that, she started working for the City of Amsterdam and the Province of Noord-Holland (Regional Authority).

Jenny has extensive experience in project management and strategic stakeholder management. Her areas of expertise are land ownership & tenure and area development, both in urban and rural areas. She builds successful alliances between stakeholders with conflicting motives, such as farmers and environmental NGOs, or local authorities and regional transport agencies. Jenny gets things done and brings things to a close by making stakeholders commit to joint and credible goals, investment plans and action plans.

Kris Radley

Cycling Strategy Leader, Essex Highways

Working for Jacobs as part of the Essex Highways Framework Kris oversees the implementation of the Essex cycling strategy in partnership with Essex County Council (ECC).

Kris has over 20 years’ experience working in the sustainable transport industry with an extensive knowledge of active travel serving as an expert in cycling. Dealing effectively with the political aspects of working for a high profile Local Authority client and making a significant contribution to their aspiration to be ‘best in class’. Kris manages a wide range of cities and places projects related primarily to highways development, master planning, urban regeneration and greenways. Kris previously worked for Sustrans delivering regional, national and international programmes for national cycle network development, strategic planning and best practice design.

Alexis Fuller

Associate, Transport Planning, SYSTRA

Alexis Fuller is an Associate Transport Planner at SYSTRA who specialises in sustainable transport strategy, policy and scheme development and monitoring, with a particular interest in Active Travel. He has recently worked with several London Boroughs in the monitoring of high-profile Streetspace schemes installed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, advising on data collection, analysis and presentation to provide a robust evidence based assessment of their impacts. His detailed understanding of such schemes in the London context has been critical to recent support providing recommendations to a consortium of London Boroughs on potential exemption policies for Low Traffic Neighbourhoods. Outside of London, Alexis is currently managing the development of Local Cycle and Walking Infrastructure Plans for a number of Local Authorities, whilst he also recently led the development of a new sustainable transport strategy for Watford Borough Council: Transforming Travel in Watford.

Mark Artis

Portfolio Delivery Engineering Lead - Cycling, Transport for London

Mark heads up the delivery of the Cycling Portfolio in TfL Engineering and oversees a multi-disciplinary team of experienced design engineers. He has worked on a range of schemes from smaller scale junction and link treatments to flagship Cycleways and has supported boroughs in their design development through collaboration and providing insight into what works and what doesn’t. Mark is well versed in the Healthy Streets approach, advocating the use of design tools throughout the development of schemes and has overseen the development of some key guidance documents for Traffic Engineering. TfL offers an opportunity to work with many functions within the organisation and Mark has been able to share and collect valuable experience with colleagues across Engagement, Operations, Sponsorship and Planning.

Paul Topham

Managing Director, Hourbike and Fifteen

Paul has over 20 years experience working in the cycle industry.

As Head of Operations since its launch in 2017 he has been instrumental in the mobilisation, performance and ongoing success of BTNBikeShare - Brighton and Hove’s award-winning bike share scheme.

He became the MD of Hourbike in 2020 and has recently confirmed a partnership with Fifteen to supply their groundbreaking Fusion e-bike to new schemes across the UK.
 

Isabelle Clement

Interim Non-Executive Director, Active Travel England

Isabelle Clement has been one of the Interim Non-Executive Directors of ATE since May 2022.

As an urban commuter handcyclist, Isabelle has extensive experience of what it takes to create the right environment so everyone can cycle. She works tirelessly to bring an understanding of active travel to disability groups and of Disability to active travel stakeholders. She co-created #BeyondTheBicycle, an alliance with parent who cycle with young children and cargo cyclists, who encounter many of the same issues as Disabled and older cyclists, and has become a leading influencer in the field of inclusive cycling & active travel.

In her day-job, Isabelle is Director of Wheels for Wellbeing, an award-winning charity, based in London, which supports Disabled people to discover or rediscover cycling. Established in 2007, the charity provides Cycling opportunities in South London; it has also become the UK-wide campaigning voice of Disabled people who cycle.

Ayanda Collins

Head of Transport Projects and People-Friendly Streets, London Borough of Islington

Aya is the Head of Transport Projects and people-friendly streets at the London Borough of Islington. She an urbanist with a passion for creating just cities and striving for transport decarbonisation. She has six years’ experience in smart cities technology, urban planning and transport programme delivery. She is currently driving the people-friendly streets programme at Islington working on a programme of low traffic neighbourhoods, school streets and cycle lanes and delivering an ambitious transport strategy. Islington won a Sustainable City Award for 'Trailblazing Public Sector Organisation in 2020' and is the current leader on the Healthy Streets Scorecard following the delivery of LTNs and School Streets during covid. 

Cllr
Terry Fox

Leader of Sheffield City Council

We are delighted that Sheffield will host the Cycle City Active City Conference in July and we look forward to working with the DfT to develop and deliver a memorable event.  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.

This will be a fantastic opportunity to showcase our developments and share our ambitions for the future. 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 delegates to our Outdoor City.

Roger
Geffen

Policy Director,

Cycling UK

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Roger Geffen’s involvement in cycle campaigning began as a volunteer with the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) in the late 1980’s.  He soon branched out into other transport and environment groups, including anti-road campaigns in the mid-1990s.

With the subsequent shift in national transport policy, he took a masters in Transport at London University and began working for Oxfordshire County Council on walking, cycling and local transport policies.

After a spell with consultants Steer Davies Gleave, he joined Cycling UK as Campaigns & Policy Manager (now Policy Director) in 2002.

He was awarded an MBE for services to cycling in 2015.

Alison Kennedy

Principal Transport Planner, Warwickshire County Council

Alison is leading on the development of Warwickshire’s first Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plan and supporting delivery of a range of sustainable travel projects. 

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She has over 25 years’ experience of cycle planning across the West Midlands.  Highlights include: organising policy workshops with Allott and Lomax Consulting Engineers, managing an ambitious infrastructure programme for Shropshire Council, establishing the successful Local Sustainable Transport Fund projects at Centro, and producing Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans for both Birmingham City Council and Warwickshire County Council.

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She has an enduring passion for cycling and its wider promotion in both urban and rural communities. 

Dominic Smith

Senior Transport Strategy Officer (Cycling and Walking), Transport for Greater Manchester

Dom leads on Cycling and Walking Infrastructure at TfGM. His team is delivering on the commitment of the Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham, to create the UK’s first fully joined up cycling and walking network. He has established TfGM’s role as Design Authority for active travel in Greater Manchester, and chairs the Design Review Panel which approves all designs of active travel infrastructure in the conurbation.

Dom has previously held senior roles in district highway authorities within Greater Manchester, and in consultancy. Aside from his professional life, Dom is a father to three children and a keen amateur cellist.

Lucy Marstrand

Cycling & Waking Design Consultant

Lucy is an independent consultant specialising in inclusive walking and cycling design. She supports local authorities with data analysis, network planning, and street design. She is currently part of the consortium of consultants providing Inspectorate functions for Active Travel England. 

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Lucy is particularly interested in querying inherited engineering wisdom, and the link between highways design and wider equality issues.  She is a member of the Department for Transport's  Cycling & Walking Infrastructure Group (CWIG), co- chairs the ICE Active Travel Community of Practice, is on the Board of Directors of the Transport Planning Society and was involved in the development of the national cycle design guidance document LTN 1/20

Patrick Lingwood

Active travel lead, Oxfordshire County Council

Patrick leads the Active Travel Hub at Oxfordshire County Council, which has the role of developing cycling and walking policy, programmes and projects for the county. Patrick said the role caps a lifetime spent devoted to researching, designing and implementing schemes to increase cycling and walking.

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After two years as transport researcher at Oxford Brookes University, he worked as ERCDT regional co-ordinator for the South East region, helping councils raise the standards of cycling in policy and delivery.

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Whilst working at Bedfordshire County Council, he prepared the successful Leighton-Linslade Cycle Town Bid. For two years he was cycling policy advisor at DfT under both Labour and Coalition Governments. While at Bedford Borough, he prepared the design for UK’s first and still only turbo-roundabout.

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Patrick moved to Oxfordshire County Council in 2018 to write the Oxford LCWIP. This year will see an expansion of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and further work developing the Quietway and Quickway cycle network for Oxford

Mihir Benison

Associate, Arup

Mihir is an Associate within Arup’s Cities Planning and Design consultancy, where he is interested in transport-led placemaking and regeneration. He has a multidisciplinary background as a chartered architect, mechanical engineer and project manager, and acts as an integrator and creative thinker working across design visions, future mobility strategies, business cases and interchange design.

He is currently leading the growth of Arup’s Mobility Hubs business having recently completed commissions with the Go-Ahead Group and Surrey County Council. Mihir has been with Arup for over 4 years, prior to which he worked at Network Rail on projects including the upgrade of Waterloo Station.

Mihir has recently held a position with the Mayor of London’s Infrastructure Young Professionals Panel helping to influence London’s future infrastructure planning, and plays an active role representing his local community as a member of Harrow Council’s Residents Regeneration Panel. Living in the suburbs of London, he would love to see Mobility Hubs in his neighbourhood to provide more sustainable journey options and reduce the need for private car journeys.

Andrew
Summers

Strategic Director, Transport East

Andrew is Strategic Director at Transport East, leading the work programme of the partnership in close collaboration with local authorities, business leaders, LEPs, DfT, National Highways, Network Rail, other STBs across England and wider partners, to coordinate the East’s single voice for its transport priorities.

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Andrew joined Transport East following five years as Strategy and Planning Manager at Transport for London where he led on London’s cycling and walking strategies. Prior to this, Andrew was Team Leader for Transport Policy and Growth at Hertfordshire County Council.

Angela Blackwood

Road Safety Instructor and Travel Planner, City of York Council

I am an Environmental Scientist with a natural inclination to see how things connect. I thrive on networking and collaboration, preferring to develop holistic approaches and solutions.

I joined City of York Council in 2009 initially as a Road Safety Instructor. We deliver Pedestrian and Cycle Training in schools and offer adult cycle training in the community, of which I’m a huge advocate!

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My journey to develop collaborative and supportive work with other teams and departments, particularly Public Health, began in 2014. This has broadened since  joining iTravel York in 2018 as a Travel Planner for Active Travel behaviour change.

Dave Stevens

Active Travel, Transport for Greater Manchester

Dave Stevens works at TfGM, delivering walking and cycling schemes in Wigan & Manchester

Previous work at Sustrans included;

• The Ghost Peloton (Yorkshire’s celebration of the Tour de France in 2014)

• 3 European Greenway awards

• Bradford’s Big Red Bridge

• The Padiham Greenway (winner of “Best Transformation” in the NCN 20th anniversary awards)

Before that he was a School Travel Plan Co-ordinator for Bradford Council piloting the

• Ilkley Yellow Bus Scheme &

• Bingley Bike IT scheme

He’s a Philosophy & Medieval History graduate from the University of St. Andrews, a Dad of two and he’s very worried about Climate Change.

John Smith

Programme Development Officer,

Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

John Smith is a Programme Development Officer at Merseytravel, the Executive body that provides professional, strategic and operational transport advice to the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority. John works in the Local Transport Plan Development Team, seeing transport projects through all stages from options and appraisal stage, to delivery, monitoring and evaluation. John has 30 years’ experience in transportation with a background in social exclusion, accessibility and active travel in various roles throughout his career.

Gareth Morris

Director,

What If Projects

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Gareth Morris is co-founder and director of what if: projects, an architecture practice based in London. Gareth worked in collaboration with the Waltham Forest Highways team on the award-winning Mini Holland - Waltham Forest "Village" schemes including the renowned Orford Road cycle street. Gareth's work has focussed on public realm and public building programs that support new active travel infrastructure. He is currently working in collaboration with the highways team on a number of low emissions projects in Waltham Forest, and also a new Active Travel Centre and a Rapid EV hub. Gareth is a member of the Harrow, Hounslow and Croydon Design Review Panels.

Fleur
Ammerlaan

Behaviour Change & Insights Manager,

Love to Ride

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Fleur Ammerlaan is the Behaviour Change and Insights Manager at Love to Ride and leads on the monitoring and evaluation for the company’s global biking behaviour change programs. With an academic background in behaviour change theory, campaigns and communications, Fleur has a keen interest in exploring the effectiveness of applying theory to real life interventions and harnessing the power of community to build lasting positive habits.

Jonathan
Allan

Head of Technology Innovation and Research,

​British Parking Association

Jonathan leads the Technology  Innovation and Research Team and is responsible for overseeing our varied projects and research initiatives. The BPA represents the UK parking and traffic management profession. Our 750 plus corporate members include local government, commercial providers, and parking system operators, as well as consultants and academics. In addition, we represent over 650 individuals and have a separate membership structure to support their professional development. 

Andrew
Hewitson

Senior Public Health Practitioner, Lancashire County Council

Andrew Hewitson is a senior public health practitioner with a remit on active travel for Lancashire County Council. Previous to this post he worked in strategic transport policy, working on LTP's, masterplanning and city and town centre movement strategies. Prior to this he held post-doctoral positions at Loughborough, Salford and Lancaster.

Neil Taylor

Managing Director, ITP

Neil Taylor is ITP’s Managing Director.  He’s been working on Local Transport Plans and strategies since starting life as a Transport Planner in 2003.  The last 20 years have seen congestion, climate change, health, economic recovery, and carbon reduction (again!) agendas shape the direction of LTPs – albeit with limited focus on cycling as a practical mode of travel outside major cities. Neil believes the combination of Garden Community proposals and a renewed LTP-focus on delivering safe cycle networks present a golden opportunity to increase the use of cycling as a practical everyday travel choice that anyone can make.

Julian Sanchez

Active Travel Strategic Lead, Essex County Council

Julian is passionate about active travel and its role in creating sustainable urban environments. In particular the potential to improve health, provide better access to local amenities and rebalance streets away from motor vehicles. He has been working in the area of changing travel habits through travel demand management and behaviour change for almost 20 years. Firstly at Transport for London in Congestion Charging and more recently as Behaviour Change Advisor in the Network Resilience Team at Transport for West Midlands. Julian is currently the Active Travel Strategic Lead at Essex County Council where he works closely with Active Essex and the Active Wellbeing Society to deliver Essex Pedal Power and other behaviour change interventions such as School Streets and Liveable Neighbourhoods.  Julian has also been working in projects related to Transport and Health for the past 10 years and is interested in changing travel habits and attitudes to increase physical activity.  He was part of a four- year European Commission  PASTA Project evaluating walking and cycling in seven European Cities and was the practitioner partner for the London case study and is a co-author of recent papers produced by the  PASTA consortium. Julian is passionate about creating active, walkable and liveable neighbourhoods which enable everyone to be healthy and reach their potential. 

Gemma
Bridge

Independent public and oral health researcher  & Running Mayor of Leeds

Gemma Bridge, PhD is an independent scholar based in Leeds, UK. Gemma's current research focuses on public health, environmental sustainability and physical activity. She is particularly interested in active travel and its potential to improve the well-being of people and places. Gemma is the Running Mayor of Leeds, a voluntary role as part of the Runsome campaign in which she works to support more people to run some everyday journeys, errands and commutes. 

Kay Inckle

Campaigns & Policy Manager, Wheels for Wellbeing

Dr Kay Inckle is Campaigns and Policy Manager for Wheels for Wellbeing, a disabled people’s cycling organisation who campaign for and provide access to cycling through an ethos of mobility justice. Her background is in social science with research interests in intersectional and social justice aspects of mental health and disability. She has published widely in these fields including research with disabled cyclists (Inckle 2020; 2019). She is a handcyclist, swimmer, Pilates instructor, writer, environmentalist and vegan.

Lisa Hopkinson

Associate,

Transport for Quality of Life

Lisa is an independent environmental researcher and consultant and an Associate of Transport for Quality of Life. She has authored numerous reports on transport and carbon including the case study on the economic benefits of cycling in London for the Bicycle Association and a report on School Streets for the charity Possible. She has experience in evaluation of sustainable transport programmes, including the Cycle City Ambition programme, and has managed a transport behavioural change project. She co-authored an overview of evidence on increasing active travel for the Department for Transport. She is also Trustee of the Foundation for Integrated Transport. She is particularly interested in getting people out of their cars and more children walking and cycling independently to school.

Wesley Wroe

Associate,

Stantec

Wesley is a Chartered Civil Engineer, and one of Stantec’s technical leads for Active Travel. A major advocate for the principle of ‘sustainable streets’, he believes that for designers to meet the needs of future communities, every piece of infrastructure that is designed should provide multiple benefits for the people that they serve. In this role, he has led on the creation of a new Streets Design Guide for Suffolk County Council, which embeds a ‘users first’ design philosophy, taking designers on a journey of how to deliver streets that promote walking and cycling over private vehicle use.

Steve Essex

Partner,

Transport Initiatives LLP

Steve Essex is a traffic engineer and transport planner currently working with Transport Initiatives. He has spent longer in this business than he cares to remember and has worked in the voluntary, public, and now private sectors. He has a broad experience of planning, design, traffic management and highway design but now specialises in sustainable travel, particularly cycling. Steve’s wide ranging experience means he is comfortable using techniques from one aspect of transport to solve problems in another area. If no solution or suitable methodology exists then he is happy devising and testing one.

With Transport Initiatives he has worked on urban and rural walking and cycling networks, accessibility, tourism issues and highway safety. He is particularly interested in how people understand spatial design and has investigated the way people use shared use paths and shared spaces, contra-flow cycling and now the Fendon Road “Dutch Style” roundabout.

Some of Steve’s work has been published as best practise by the Department of Transport and he has contributed to design guidance, including LTN1/20.

Ben Lee

Partnerships & Campaigns Lead , Beryl

Ben Lee is the Partnerships and Campaigns Lead at Beryl helping partners develop sustainable active travel practice with their fleet of bikes and scooters. Working with both commercial and public sector organisations, his role can help shape how people move around towns and cities.

Beryl is the UK's leading micromobility company, championing sustainable travel options to help reduce road congestion and improve air quality and public health.

A B-Corp certified operator, we deliver schemes in partnership with cities and communities, placing people, social responsibility and environmental sustainability at the same level as financial sustainability.

Isobel Howie

Health Improvement Principal (Public Health), Sheffield City Council

Issy is a Health Improvement Principal, specialising in using behavioural change theory and practice to promote public health in Sheffield.  She has over 30 years-experience of working in Local Government in equalities, training, community and democratic engagement, empowerment and strategic partnerships. Passionate about everyday activity being fundamental to wellbeing for all ages, she recently helped develop and work with 5 other Councils on an LGA sponsored research study. The study explored barriers and facilitators to active short, local journeys and developed a successful motivational intervention to add value to infrastructure and other interventions that encourage active short, local journeys.

Chris Donaldson

Senior Consultant, SYSTRA

Chris Donaldson is a Senior Consultant based in SYSTRA’s London Transport Planning team focused on the junction of active travel schemes and transport economics. With experience spanning options development for cycle routes in inner London to creating business cases in rural Ashfield, Chris is keen to engage with opportunities to improve the development process for walking and cycling schemes – particularly, considering big data tools (such as VBA and Python) as well as new ways of thinking about the economics of such schemes. He is excited to join Cycle City Active City in Sheffield this year!

Jessica van Grootveld

Stakeholder Management Consultant, VINU

Jessica is a strategic stakeholder management consultant for VINU in the United Kingdom. She is also part of the management team.

In 2016 Jessica graduated from Wageningen University with a Master’s degree in International Land and Water Management.  She has previously worked for the National Association of Water Companies in the Netherlands and for Thames21 as a catchment partnership manager.

Jessica loves unravelling complex issues – together with others – and finding sustainable solutions. She excels at building collaborative partnerships with various stakeholders and has experience with engaging all sectors of society, including businesses, farmers, civil society and local authorities.

Jennifer Coombs

Principal Travel Demand Management Officer, Birmingham City Council

Jennifer is a transport officer with 16 years’ experience in the field of active travel and road safety education. She leads on the Car Free School Streets programme in Birmingham and oversees both school’s active travel and road safety education portfolios. 

Throughout her career, Jennifer has pursued a keen interest in behaviour change which she applies in her work to promote safe and sustainable transport. She has delivered many partnership projects working alongside organisations including West Midlands Police and West Midlands Fire Service. Jennifer has written and delivered tailored workshops to a wide range of audiences including schools, hospitals, emergency services and even prisons.

Recently returning from maternity leave she is more passionate than ever about putting children and families first and encouraging active travel, helping to keep people safe and healthy.

Ian Burden

Projects Director,

SYSTRA

Ian Burden is a Director at SYSTRA with 35 years’ experience in transport modelling, forecasting and scheme assessment.  This has included developing and applying public transport and multi-modal models, such as TfL Railplan in London, Irish NTA Regional Models and Solent Transport SRTM.  He’s assessed rail, bus, tram and active mode schemes, highway improvements ranging from individual junctions to smart motorways, along with development scenarios examining local plans to regional policy alternatives.

For TfL, Ian assisted in developing their cycle forecasting model, Cynemon, including implementation of the demand response element, process enhancements and data updates.  Prior to Cynemon, Ian was involved in assessing a number of TfL cycling initiatives including a Cycle Superhub Forecasting Tool.  This expanded cycle propensity data and willingness to pay surveys, to forecast potential station cycle access usage and incorporating user and non-user benefits including Health and Absenteeism Impacts. 

Ian is currently contributing to the development of SYSTRA’s cycle scheme assessment tool.

Jon Burke

City of Gloucester

Jon Burke is a municipal decarbonisation professional and urbanist who currently leads the City of Gloucester's climate change programme and is helping to shape the environmental policies of a national network of local authorities covering almost half the U.K's urban areas. In his former role as the London Borough of Hackney's Cabinet Member for Energy, Waste, Transport, and Public Realm, he delivered a transport and public realm programme that included the largest number of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets in the U.K; an extensive network of cycling infrastructure; the country's largest urban forestry programme; the first 'no spray' and zero weed removal zone; and the most extensive network of drinking water fountains in Britain.

Guy Boulby

Head of Investment,

Active Travel England

Guy is currently responsible for the cycling and walking investment programme set out in Gear Change, the PM’s £2bn long-term cycling and walking plan published in July 2020. He has a background in aerospace systems engineering and project management and has worked in transport, defence and energy programmes for over twenty years, including as a project team leader for the £320m Heat Networks Investment Project and as project manager for the UK’s first plan for meeting binding carbon targets: the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan.

Alex Robb

Liveable Neighbourhoods Officer,

Glasgow City Council

Alex is working on Glasgow’s new active travel strategy and liveable neighbourhood plans. Facilitating engagement, supporting design work and coordinating communications for these ambitious workstreams, as part of Glasgow’s bold transport and climate ambitions for the coming decade. He has spent the past 5-years working on active travel through different public and third sector roles. He is passionate about bicycle urbanism, 20-minute neighbourhoods and climate action.

Chris Sibthorpe

Director, PJA

Chris Sibthorpe is a Director at PJA and leads the Manchester office and their active travel workstream . He has over 25 years’ experience in the public and private sector specialising in sustainable transport projects.. He is the

Project Director for the LCWIP guidance refresh  and is currently part of the PJA Academy which provides active travel training to local authority and developer clients.