It is easy to dismiss the Netherlands – with its endless flat countryside and culture of two wheels, as something we can not replicate. But as Melissa Henry, director at Sustrans, the charity that promotes safer, healthier travelling, says: “In the Netherlands and other European nations renowned for their bike use, they were pretty much following the same path as us up until the mid-1970s.” Bike use was falling at the same rate as Britain, and car use was increasing. “But they made a conscious decision to invest more in infrastructure.”