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Introduction

In July CTC received the exciting news that it had been given a major grant towards a £6.3 million programme which will bring cycling activities to new and beginner cyclists. The funding enabled CTC to employ 13 development officers for four years who will work with community groups and partner organisations in 13 locations across England and gives each area a special projects fund to help new cycling activities get underway. The BIG Lottery Fund will provide £4.5 million towards the project with the remaining funding coming from partner organisations.

Update February 2008.

What’s it all about?

When we launched our new 5 year strategy in the spring 2007 one of its cornerstones was the opportunity for CTC to share its expertise in cycling as leisure and transport to a whole new audience and to spread the expertise of our national office team with a development team around the country. CTC Charitable Trust’s Cycling Champions programme enables us to do that as part of a consortium of leading walking, cycling and health organisations being funded by the Big Lottery Fund’s Well-being programme which provides funding to support the development of healthier lifestyles and to improve well-being.

The Consortium is lead by Sustrans and includes programmes by CTC, Living Streets, London Cycling Campaign, the Ramblers’ Association, Transport 2000 and Walk 21. We are delivering a portfolio of projects that will enable 2 million people to become more physically active by walking or cycling as part of their daily lives. British Cycling, Cycling England, the National Heart Forum and the National Obesity Forum are supporters of the programme.

CTC’s programme (and LCC’s parallel programme in London) is particularly targeted at bringing cycling to sections of society that are known to have lower physical activity levels and are less likely to be choose cycling as a lifestyle or transport choice. These include groups like older people, the disabled, women and ethnic minorities. In each location CTC Charitable Trust will be working with a range of local partners who will host the development officers and build on existing programmes.

The funding for CTC Charitable Trust will enable us to set up a complete development programme to support the people who champion cycling at a local level, the groups, leaders, trainers, charities, health trusts and local authorities that have great ideas for bringing cycling to their communities but need resources and support from someone like CTC to get started. Through them we will see thousands more people getting started on a more physically active lifestyle. We will also create a complete toolkit for developing local cycling that can be available nationally.

The term "champions" is used widely as a sort of shorthand for a supporter of initiative like this. We know of school champions, health champions, equality champions and all sorts of similar roles. In our terms we mean the leading contacts that support the introduction or development of cycling within their communities, either voluntarily or as part of their work. They need not be cyclists themselves, but they are the supporters we need to find to make cycling activities possible. In that sense all the recipients of this briefing are champions in their own right, but we can add to that a much wider network.