Leicester Fit for Business
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NEWS
PRIZE WINNERS
BEAUMONT TRAVEL ROADSHOW
21.3.2012 - click here for details
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Leicester City Council is pleased to announce that it has been awarded £4.4 million from the Local Sustainable Transport fund for Leicester Fit for Business. The fund was awarded to those authorities that included a diverse package of transport measures targeted at supporting the economy and encouraging economic growth whilst reducing carbon emissions.
The council would like to thank all partners that worked on putting the bid together.
Leicester Fit for Business aims to work with businesses and communities to encourage people to travel by low carbon and active transport. Fit for Business covers three main strands:
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The needs of the community - works with priority groups, existing employers and employees to remove barriers to sustainable commuting, providing travel training and information and promoting smart ticketing.
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Creating a legacy - enabling priority groups and Multi Access Centre Advisors to continue encouraging walking cycling and public transport. This will be achieved through creating a bank of cycle trainers, walk leaders and travel advisors to provide travel advice and training to businesses and communities.
The bid covers an area around the Narborough Road corridor, including Grove Park, and also covers the north western wedge of the city.
Over the next four years the council and its partners will be working with businesses and community groups to provide the following:
Adult cycle training is being offered to businesses, to encourage their employees to consider cycling to work as an option. It includes bike handling, using gears effectively, defensive riding skills, an introduction to basic mechanics, journey planning, clothing and carrying items in a cycle.
B-Active Women’s Project is working with Leicester City Council to give women the opportunity to take part in cycle training.
Bike It is a cycle training scheme delivered in schools to encourage children to cycle on roads safely and encourage the whole school to cycle. Children will be the employees of tomorrow and they are more likely to cycle if they get into the habit at school. Cycling will also increase their physical activity levels.
Bike recycling project is a local social enterprise scheme where old bikes are reconditioned, repaired and resold to students, school children and the general public.
Bus stop information work is planned to co-ordinate information from different bus companies and provide combined bus timetables at bus stops.
Cycle challenge is a fun, free workplace competition, where businesses compete to see who gets the most members of staff to ride a bike for at least 10 minutes. Prizes such as meal vouchers, cycling gear, and a massage therapist in the office for 2 days are offered as incentives.
Cycle Champions Project is run by the Cyclist Touring Club, to provide cycle training and guidance to groups of people, to help them to access work by cycle. The project will also give people the opportunity to become cycle trainers themselves.
Cycle hubs in Leicester:
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The Town Hall has a newly refurbished Bike Park, which offers secure cycle parking, repairs and a retail outlet. An additional cycle maintenance engineers training room is planned.
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The Adult Education Centre in Wellington Street has a basement area which will be developed to provide a facility for training cycle maintenance engineers.
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Leicester City Council plans to develop a facility for training sports cyclists and promoting cycle tourism at Leicester Speedway.
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Businesses are also being encouraged to develop their own company cycle hubs to provide parking and changing facilities to promote staff switching to cycling to work.
Electric car grants are available for both purchasing cars and recharging points. The Government is supporting the uptake of electric cars, through cost savings and tax incentives. Reduced rates are available for electric car recharging points in private car parks. Now is the ideal time to ensure that charging points are available for the increasing number of electric vehicles.
Get Walking – Keep Walking is an urban walking project developed by the Ramblers to develop regular walking. Programmes include:
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Six weeks of facilitated activities including informal workshop sessions on the benefits and barriers of walking, with walks led by trained staff and volunteers along at least four different routes
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Six weeks of independent walking and less formal walking opportunities
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Support materials including a 12-week walking plan, logbook, route cards and e-newsletter
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Support from volunteer walking ambassadors trained to enthuse and inform beneficiaries about walking locally
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Regular celebration events running across a cluster of nearby centres
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Signposting to other walking activities during and after the programme, including health walks and Ramblers group walks.
Programmes will be available to people living in parts of Abbey, Beaumont Leys, Braunstone, Coleman, Latimer, New Parks wards.
Innertube map is an ‘Underground’ style cycle map being produced by Leicester City Council.
An interactive route planner is planned as a transport information service for walking, cycling and public transport, where the different options available can be compared. The route planner will show your required route, how long it will take, calories burned if walking and cycling and will link to the bus timetables.
Legible Leicester is a proposed review of walking and cycling route signage, particularly ensuring that routes to businesses are clear to follow.
Leicester Cycle City workshops take place on the third Wednesday of the month at the Town Hall. Workshops commence at 4.30 p.m. for viewing plans and meetings start at 5.00 p.m. Meetings are chaired by the Leicester City Council Cycling Officer and the council Lead Member for Transport is always invited. Many of Leicester and Leicestershire’s cycle groups attend these meetings, which are also open to members of the public.
Leicestershare is a car share service to which people can sign up and find a partner to share their journey.
Multi-Access centres are where people go for help in accessing training and employment opportunities. Staff at the eight multi-access centres around Leicester will be trained to provide travel information, so that they can help people with travel to work or training venues.
Personalised Travel Planning advisors will help individuals and families identify routes and methods of travel to meet their needs.
Public Transport Interchange is a project to make bus stops more user-friendly at Humberstone Gate East. A similar project is proposed for Beaumont Leys in the near future.
Ride Leicester Festival is an annual event which takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The festival promotes cycling in and around Leicester and includes Sky Ride.
Smart ticketing does away with the need to find the correct amount of cash when travelling by bus. OneCard is a scheme where users register their details in advance, to use a smart card for bus journeys by simply touching a card reader when they get on the bus.
Star Walker is a pedestrian training programme delivered in schools, to assist children to cross roads safely and encourage them to walk to school. Children will be the employees of tomorrow and they are more likely to walk if they get into the habit at school. Walking will also increase their physical and social wellbeing.
Walk doctor events will be led by Living Streets to help people find opportunities to walk within their daily routines. Events will include a display of maps, walking advice leaflets, local information and weight loss calculators. Walk doctors hold one-to-one consultations, give walking prescriptions and offer 6-monthly follow-up meetings.
We still await the outcome of the bid led by Living Streets to encourage more walking to school. The outcome of this bid will not be known until summer 2012.
Businesses in Beaumont Leys are currently being asked to apply for grants to improve the journey to, during and from work for employees.
