2024 LCC Award Winners Celebrated

Every year, the London Cycling Campaign Awards recognise the valuable contributions from brilliant people in London to help make it a city safe for everyone to cycle in.

Whether that was prodding, provoking and persuading key decision makers to take notice and take action, enabling more communities in the city to cycle or carrying on the hard work of campaigning in boroughs that are lagging behind in their delivery of quality cycling schemes.

LCC’s chair of trustees, Eilidh Murray, presented the awards to our winners. Head to the LCC Facebook page to view a gallery of the photos from the Awards night.

A big well done to all the nominees and everyone who received an award, you made the judging process very difficult! Without further ado, here are the winners:

Hands of Friendship Award

For someone who has reached beyond their LCC group to collaborate with other organisations or community groups in their borough.

Winners

Suzanne Weller and John Chamberlain, Camden Cyclists

For their work organising a social prescribing project with a local GP practice where they take participants signposted by the practice on led rides around Camden.

Above the Noise Award

For someone who has used imaginative ways of communicating a campaign or boosting community support for a scheme e.g. through social media, newsletters, film, website or more!

Highly Commended

Jonathan Rothwell, Newham Cyclists

For his entertaining, informative and shocking video of the dangerous diversion that was set up when Thames Water closed off a section of the Greenway. Big kudos also to Karen Flanagan from Newham Cyclists who supplied footage for the video and has been key in pushing this campaign.

Joint Winners

Francesca Savage, Harith Canna and Zak

For engaging incredibly persuasively on social media with powerful footage of their riding as a family, highlighting good and bad infrastructure, as well as demonstrating all the benefits and the viability of cycling, in London and beyond.

Anne-Claire Dupuis, Wandsworth Cycling Campaign

For the group’s social media campaign featuring videos of young people talking about why they love cycling and what is stopping them from doing it more, highlighting their need for independent mobility.

Winning Hearts and Minds Award

For someone who has created or sustained political will in the council by appealing to the leader or transport lead’s head and heart.

Highly Commended

Havering Cyclists

For continuing to do the slow and patient work of building political will in their borough. Earlier this year, the council opened a new section of cycle lane in Romford central, their first cycle lane in eight years, and the group did a great job celebrating the win with the council, using this opportunity to build their relationship with them.

Winner

Redbridge Cycling Campaign

For their ongoing work on building better relations with the council and complementing their political campaigning with a superb rides programme.

Green Shoots Award

For someone who has restarted, grown or dramatically improved their local group.

Highly Commended

Jeremy Cross, Redbridge Cycling Campaign

For his tireless work behind the scenes as the group’s treasurer and tech person. His work has given Redbridge Cycling Campaign a high profile in Redbridge and their regularly updated website is now frequently visited by many local riders.

Bexley Cycling, Harrow Cyclists and Enfield Cycling Campaign

For reactivating their local groups and keeping their groups going during periods of uncertainty.

Winner

Get Sutton Cycling

For reforming their local group after an indefinite hiatus and making inroads into forming a relationship with their council. A superb effort in a difficult borough!

Joyful Cycling Award

For a person or LCC local group who have introduced a lot of new people to cycling in their area through community programmes such as Cycle Buddies, Dr Bikes, Bike Buses and other community programmes.

Highly Commended

Bruce Lynn, Southwark Cyclists

For organising Healthy Rides in Southwark for many years, ensuring there’s a ride (or more) in Southwark every Saturday.

Winner

Adrian Williams, Cycle Islington

For providing a monthly Dr Bike for decades and sharing his knowledge with people so they can learn bike basics themselves.

Excellent Events Award

For a person or LCC local group who have influenced political will through events such as a protest ride, rides that celebrate the completion of a new cycleway and other rides with a campaigning element.

Highly Commended

Hackney Cycling Campaign

For organising a protest ride to pay tribute to two people killed while cycling in Hackney in 2023 and call for much-needed safety improvements.

Winners

Greenwich Cyclists, Lewisham Cyclists and Southwark Cyclists

For organising a joyous ride to celebrate the completion of works along cycleway 4.

Campaigner of the Year Award

For someone who has done an outstanding job campaigning this past year.

Highly Commended

Will Petty. Hackney Cycling Campaign

For his impressive strategy, legwork, mapping skills and social media presence, especially in relation to the group’s recent campaign around Pembury Circus. A big shoutout to everyone else in Hackney Cycling Campaign who has also been working tirelessly on this campaign.

Winner

Suzanne Seyghal Buckingham, Kingston Cycling Campaign

For being a terrific and diligent campaigner since joining the Kingston group in 2022. Suzanne has organised meetings with the council, taken the council leader and ward councillors on rides, organised and promoted successful family rides and coordinated bike maintenance activities. A well-deserved award!

Active and Inclusive Travel Award

For ambitious councils and/or delivery partners who have delivered bold cycling schemes in the last 12 months.

Highly Commended

Camden’s Transport Design Team, specifically Anthony Christofi

For the delivery of a bold and innovative cycle safety and streetscape scheme for the eastern and southern arms of the Holborn gyratory. This reallocation of motor traffic lanes to cycling and greening and additional planting areas have returned Red Lion Square to a more peaceful state and made the area much safer and more attractive for cycling.

Winner

Waltham Forest Council

For continuing to roll out major schemes in a climate where few boroughs seem able to deliver. Its permanent and high-quality extension to Forest Road is in construction, improvements to Whipps Cross Road have recently been announced and its Higham Hill and Lloyd Park LTNs are in and set to get a next phase. Long after their mini-Holland funding has gone, an outer London borough continues to out-perform every other London borough on quality, scale and pace of delivery. It’s no wonder transport portfolio lead, Cllr Clyde Loakes, also got a much-deserved MBE for his work this year too.

Active Travel Community Initiative Award

For a group from outside the LCC network who have enabled a wider range of everyday cycling or active travel.

Highly Commended

Temi Lateef, My-Choice

For delivering cycle sessions with local communities where children and adults can get involved. Participants are starting to show key markers of behaviour change including increased confidence, requests for more challenging cycle experiences and continuous improvement in their physical and mental health. They are also creating safe spaces for Muslim women to cycle and have trained a handful of beginner cyclists who now use cycling as an everyday form of transport.

Josie Warshaw, Cycletastic Bike Shed

For running the Cycletastic project for 14 years and pushing for measures that successfully reduced motor traffic in Brent.

Winner

Peddle My Wheels

For having a variety of projects that get more people cycling, including being able to hire a cargo bike and try out a bike before committing to purchasing one. More recently, they have worked with Wheels for Wellbeing and Sustrans to create Wheels4MeLondon, a project enabling more disabled people to cycle through free access to non-standard cycles. Here’s a quote on how Peddle My Wheels helped someone get back into cycling:

“Without the program I would have never got back on a bike again after a serious accident and then after starting to ride again two bikes being stolen just meant knocked my confidence too much but with the bike riding tutoring sessions and a bike and all of the kit to go with it I was able to get back on a bike and now I commute daily to work.”

Active Travel Hero Award

For the non-LCC campaigner who has done the most alongside us for active travel in the past year.

Winner

Save Our Safer Streets

This group of Tower Hamlets residents and business owners came together to keep and improve the pedestrian-friendly streets installed in the Bethnal Green area in 2021 (costing £3m of TfL funding), which the current council wants to remove. SOSS started off with a superb, fleet-footed, media-savvy campaign to retain a large number of school streets, and though they were unsuccessful, the activity cemented the group and brought a wider community together for the bigger campaign to save the well-loved streetspace scheme on Old Bethnal Green Road – high quality urban realm, with pocket parks and pedestrian-friendly features, in a street that previously had 8,000 vehicles along it per day, most of which were just passing through.

A big shout out to Tower Hamlets Wheelers for also supporting.

More LCC Local Group Highlights

We also want to take this opportunity to acknowledge all the other work our local group volunteers have been doing over the past year:

• Barnet Cycling Campaign got their transport lead to go on a Waltham Forest Mini Holland tour with Waltham Forest’s Cllr Clyde Loakes, a really useful step to take there.
• Brent Cycling Campaign – TfL consulted on a new cycle and walking route between Wembley Central and Harlesden in November and December 2023. More than 80% of people said the scheme will make walking more inviting, and almost 9 in 10 respondents agree that more people will cycle. The next step is for Brent Council to approve the final designs.
• Camden Cyclists are celebrating cycling mode share nearly doubling in the borough (growing from 3.6% in 2017 to 6.7% in 2022). 56% of the borough’s population now live within 400m of a high-quality strategic cycle network route. Build it and they’ll come eh?
• City of London Cycling Campaign has been working hard to push back against taxis being allowed to use certain roads again.
• Croydon Cycling Campaign has got their group active again and we sincerely hope that Croydon gets the cycling environment its residents deserve.
• Cycle Islington in conjunction with Haringey and Hackney Cycling Campaigns have started calling for safety improvements to the Finsbury Park junction.
• Ealing Cycling Campaign have continued with their very well organised programme of rides and their council is beginning to bring out a number of schemes to improve cycling.
• Get Sutton Cycling continue to lay what they hope will be a firm foundation for the future.
• Haringey Cycling Campaign hosted their lovely Secret Safari Ride which despite the grey wintery weather saw a great turnout of 60 people keen to burn off some energy (and post-Xmas mince pies) while taking in brilliant animal murals created by Turnpike Art Group.
• Harrow Cyclists had a very successful RideLondon feeder ride to the FreeCycle with 29 participants. Fantastic considering how long the ride in is!
• Hounslow Cycling keeps building support for C9, a critical route between west and central London and it seems a regular quarterly occurrence that C9 just extends magically and quietly into the sunset!
• Kensington and Chelsea’s LCC rep, Christophe Noblet, has returned to ensure that someone (and a highly capable someone at that) is representing cycling in the borough.
• Kingston Cycling Campaign listed four fun rides aimed at getting kids out enjoying their bikes, meetings with their council leader to encourage him to be more active in getting cycling and spending their grant on measures to get and keep more people cycling. as their highlights.
• Lambeth Cyclists fought hard to keep the Streatham Wells LTN and their council hasn’t gone away; they are still moving on in Lambeth with other LTNs.
• Merton Cycling Campaign have been diligently writing to the council about their concerns and recently had a meeting with their London Assembly member. They also very generously supported the Dangerous Junctions activity on a cold morning in Tooting.
• Richmond Cycling Campaign have helped to combat an anti-cycling attitude from Richmond Park, very valuable considering the park is used for everyday journeys too.
• Westminster Cycling Campaign have been on the case with their council to stop delaying the roll out of schemes and get moving.

Another round of applause for all the nominees and volunteers who keep pushing for better and safer cycling in London. We look forward to seeing what you get up to in the coming year.