Bikeability Trust Annual Review 2019

Welcome to the second annual review of the national Bikeability cycle training programme. This review also covers the activity of the Bikeability Trust, but its main aim is to take stock of the Bikeability programme itself. In our first annual review of Bikeability last year, I set out some of the history. In this second review, I would like to look to the future. Bikeability has an important part to play in the Government’s Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy which, in turn, has a role to play in reducing car usage (and thus helping to combat climate change), generating clean economic growth, improving air quality, reducing obesity and increasing life expectancy and quality. As the Get Britain Cycling report laid out back in 2013, a successful strategy for cycling must encompass many things, of which training and education are just a part and Bikeability is itself just a part of that: driver education is equally important, along with good quality infrastructure. Bikeability provides an essential life skill, and is a vital part of this overall strategy. Although at the time of writing this the details have not been announced, we hope to be in a position soon to start ramping up Bikeability delivery to the point where it is offered to every child in England (London, with its separate funding arrangements, is slightly different). For many years, the funding from the Department for Transport (DfT) has been sufficient for around half of children to do Bikeability up to Level 2, so the pledge to offer Bikeability to every child is a real breakthrough. Without doubt, this will bring challenges: there will be schools that have never taken part before (and which may be remote or small or have other reasons for not participating); even within the schools that already do Bikeability, the uptake is rarely 100%. The Bikeability industry as a whole has the challenge of increasing participation rates in those schools; and we will need to recruit new instructors as well as retain existing ones. Whilst the challenge of meeting this growth will mostly fall to Bikeability providers, we at the Bikeability Trust will of course do all that we can to support the industry in meeting their targets for scaling up delivery. This central support will be in the form of financial support, centrally produced resources, training and recruitment days, amongst other initiatives. Bikeability is at its best when it links with other programmes so we look forward to continued close working with our delivery partners to make sure that children and their families who want to cycle more after doing Bikeability have suitable support and outlets to put their new-found skills into practice. We will continue to build on these partnerships in the coming years as more and more children do Bikeability. We are all trying to achieve the same thing, and working together brings great benefits to all our organisations and, of course, to the children. We will continue to engage commercial partners who can help us to extend the reach, uptake and effectiveness of Bikeability. We are grateful to Halfords for the partnership which came to an end in 2019. This allowed us to build up the Bikeability Innovation Fund to the point where we are soon, at time of publication, to announce its first major grant round to follow the modest first step of £150,000 distributed last year. The staff at the Trust are grateful for the skills, experience and time that our trustees offer. We are all grateful to the DfT which has backed and funded the programme since the start, and whose decision to offer Bikeability to every child really does mark the start of the next phase of Bikeability. Paul Robison CEO – Bikeability Trust Welcome to the second annual review of the national Bikeability cycle training programme. This review also covers the activity of the Bikeability Trust, but its main aim is to take stock of the Bikeability programme itself. 3 www.bikeability.org.uk