The cyclist-turned advocate is addressing the Labour and Conservative conferences on why the UK needs more bikes

Chris Boardman: 'This is the biggest opportunity cycling is going to have'

Chris Boardman is best known for riding and making bikes. But this morning he was instead talking about bikes, and in an unusual setting: the Labour party conference in Manchester.

The Olympic champion and former world hour record holder has over the last couple of years again reinvented himself as a hugely effective advocate and campaigner for everyday mass cycling, with the official title of policy adviser for British Cycling.

British Cycling has joined with the CTC, Sustrans, London Cycling Campaign and other groups in sending Boardman, along with Jon Snow, the CTC president, to the Labour and Conservative conferences to push the two-wheeled message.

Officially the campaign is aimed at getting MPs to sign up to the very sensible, and not excessively ambitious, recommendations of last year’s Get Britain Cycling report.

But when I spoke to Boardman this morning, after he had addressed the event alongside the Labour transport spokeswoman, Mary Creagh, he explained the main push is to get the major parties to make any sort of specific, costed cycling-related commitments before next year’s election.

Creagh, he said, had been making “very bold statements” about long-term funding for cycling:

The next step that we need is people to put numbers to those bold statements. We heard about the cycling revolution last year. It’s a lofty word, but we haven’t seen the bold action to go with those bold words yet. We haven’t got any targets, we haven’t got any committed, long-term, meaningful funding. We’re not seeing the leadership that goes with the statements. We need actual numbers, timescales, targets. That’s what will send the message to give local government the confidence to commit and start to build things that they can maintain in two or three years’ time.



The months leading to the next election were crucial, he said:

I think the next eight months is really scary. I think this is the biggest opportunity we’re ever going to have. This is the time when we, as voters, as cyclists and s parents, can say, ‘Right, I want to hear what you’re going to do. If you want my vote you’ve got to commit – not just the nice words, you’ve got to show something tangible, things I can hold you accountable for.’ If we can get one main party to do we can go to the others and beat them over the head with it.

The Liberal Democrats have already officially adopted the Get Britain Cycling recommendations.

More commitment was needed from Labour and the Conservatives, Boardman said:

Labour certainly seem to be making the louder noises, but in my opinion we need that to translate into, ‘Tell us what that actually means. In pounds and pence, in months and years, and in percentages of population that you want to be travelling by bike.’ It’s not going to be easy, and that’s why politicians are scared to death of something like this. There’s no logical reason to not do it, whatever battleground you want to fight on, be it health, congestion. Whatever way you want to go, this is a logical path. You want proof? You’re surrounded by proof in Europe. It’s really scary for them, as you’re going to have to reallocate space, and the people who currently drive cars, me amongst them, will have to make some sacrifices. And those kind of things are potential vote losers. It’s up to us to keep the pressure on, to keep battering them over the head with the logic, and not let anyone hide.

Boardman said he had spent the last year hearing everyone “from ministers to local cycle officers” explain that radical change can’t be done, but not explaining why.

It’s just obfuscation. It’s been fascinating, and quite impressive actually, that people can go so far without doing something logical. It’s very like Yes Minister lots of the time. It’s infuriating because this isn’t about bikes. This is about transport, this is about the places where we live, from our village to our country. This is not an add-on, it’s not something that’s nice to have. It’s a tool that could be catalytic in changing our country for the better in all the different areas I’ve mentioned.

I’m a big fan of Boardman’s advocacy, and more generally I’m very impressed with the way British Cycling, primarily a sports-based organisation, has taken up the baton for mass cycling.

Will we go into the next election with all three major parties advocating radical, measurable change for cycling? And if we do, will much come from it? It’s hard to know. But I do agree with Boardman that the next eight months are crucial.