Cycling UK takes aim at 'hearts and minds' in new five-year plan

Cycling UK plans to win over a quiet majority with a hearts and minds approach to creating a more positive image around riding bikes.

Speaking as the charity announced a new five-year plan, Cycling UK CEO Sarah Mitchell told Cycling Weekly: "We believe that there's a majority of people who support cycling, and we think if we can create much more of a positive image of cycling with those people, that will help start to change those hearts and minds around cycling so that everybody starts to see the benefits."

Turning those hearts and minds into people on bikes is the big challenge that, and Mitchell is well aware of its scale. Cycling UK is not big enough to tackle it alone, she said, and will join with third parties – she gave the example of a health charity  – to make it happen.

"It could be a whole range of different people who have those kind of crossover interests with us. Because we know that we can't do this on our own," she said.

The idea of improving cycling's image is part of one of five separate points in a five-year plan announced last week.

In brief, they are:

1. Improve perceptions of cycling so that everyone sees the benefits
2. Make cycling an even more positive experience
3. Boost the number and diversity of people who cycle
4. Increase transport choice by enabling and encouraging more people to cycle local journeys
5. Achieve greater impact by becoming the best possible charity it can be

These are all very broad-brush ideas, and indeed Cycling UK lists them as 'strategic objectives'. But there are tactical plans behind them, Mitchell said.

As part of making cycling even more positive, the charity will, for example, continue to campaign on the 2022 Highway Code changes, which included minimum passing distances for cyclists and a hierarchy of road users. "There's still a huge amount of work to be done on communicating that to all road users."

Cycling UK will also continue to work alongside the police on driver training, with storage and theft also being a key focus.

In terms of diversity, Cycling UK will add to the work it has done in more disadvantaged communities and lower socio-economic groups, Mitchell said, with people who "don't think about cycling as being for them".

"We've actually had quite a lot of success with that already," she said. "So we'd like to do more of that in different communities across the whole of the UK, but I think we want to talk more about it, because we know that the more people see people like them cycling, the more they think it's for them."

For point four – making local journeys easier by bike, part of Cycling UK's work would build on its 'Making cycling e-asier' scheme, which allows people to borrow e-bikes for a set period. It has been run as a trial and a study in conjunction with the Department for Transport in four parts of the UK (Manchester, Sheffield, Leicester & Burton on Trent and Luton & Dunstable) and is coming to an end. It will continue in two areas, but which ones have not been announced yet.

"It's about giving people a choice," said Mitchell. "The work that we've done on our ecycles programme has been really successful in showing that people can have that shift. If they borrow an ebike for some time, they can start to change their behaviour."

The last point – becoming the best charity it could – was less flashy, Mitchell conceded, but still important, she insisted.

"It's really crucial because I suppose we feel as a charity that the more effective we are internally, the more impact we can provide as an organisation."

To these ends Cycling UK would look to become as efficient and agile as possible, with an income strategy that ensured it was not overly reliant on single large funding sources, she said.

At a time when cycling and cyclists are taking flak from what feels like all sides, it feels like Cycling UK has its work cut out if it is going to make significant steps in some of these strategic points, something not lost on Mitchell.

"I think it's important to recognise the challenges that we have on the roads," she said. "But it's also really important to keep reminding people that cycling is brilliant experience."