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LCC Community Skills Summit, 5 April

Boost your campaigning on active travel in your area with a day of talks, workshops & networking on Saturday 5 April

All welcome at LCC’s community skills summit

Saturday 5 April 2025 9.30am-5pm

Location: University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Free to all, suggested donation to cover costs £15/£5 (concessions)

Interested in cycling, active travel and campaigning to improve your area? Join us for a day exploring how to make your area a safer place for anyone to cycle, walk and wheel so that it’s greener, cleaner and healthier.

Our event is open to all. Come for:

  • An opening plenary setting the scene for the day
  • A range of workshop streams for campaigners of all levels of experience, from beginners to the seasoned
  • A great opportunity to meet campaigners from across London and beyond

Full event details including getting there

 

COMMUNITY SKILLS SUMMIT

Learn how you can maximise your campaigning and make your area a better place for walking, wheeling & cycling - register now to confirm your place.

Sessions

Our annual campaigning & community skills summit is back but with a difference. This year we’re not going to fix your area for walking/wheeling and cycling, you are (with our support).

While previous Summits have focused on speakers imparting campaigning knowledge, this year’s sessions are more about collaboration between workshop participants, with guides and experts on hand to help. The aim is you leave with a clear sense of what you need to do next to make cycling better in your area.

Whether you’re a community campaigner, advocate, activist or a resident (inside or beyond London), no matter your experience, from complete beginner to storied expert, you’ll learn how to make your area better for walking, wheeling and cycling.

When you register, choose the streamed session that best describes your area currently. These will span across both session timeslots to provide a hands on deep dive. We’ll be posing attendees real-world problems to ‘get out of’ in groups. How could you deliver change? How should you? You’ll solve the knottiest active travel issues facing your area with our help and come away with a plan you can use for your campaigning.

If you’re unsure about which session to attend, we’d be happy to advise. Please email campaign@lcc.org.uk. If you’re in London we also have recommendations based on the political situation in your borough.

 

Stream 1: No one cares about active travel (except us!)

You want people to be able to get to schools, shops and the nearest station, but there’s few buses, hardly any cycle tracks and the council mainly cares about shouty drivers. Who can you turn to when your local group lacks volunteers? How will you raise your voice and bring others to your cause?

Working through scenarios together, you’ll learn how to find out what your community and council really care about and develop a plan to get the council to act, finding help along the way.

Stream 2: Too little, too late

Your council specialises in kind words and strategies for what happens 3 years from now, they might even have a good scheme or two on the horizon but actual results on the ground are few and far between. Political will is lacking, and councillors are too meek. How can you become more confident and optimistic about campaigning and get the council moving?

Working through scenarios together, you’ll learn the key way to get your council working and develop a plan to get your council leader to care about active travel and ways to get them to persevere in the face of backlash.

Stream 3: Bolder, faster, better

Your council is delivering good schemes, but it wobbles and slows down randomly at times. It is off course on climate commitments or even rolling some back at present. How can you most effectively shore up political will and quality and pace of delivery while maintaining a good relationship with the council?

Working through scenarios together, you’ll learn how to build trust with council officials and politicians to become a partner in delivering for active travel and create an action plan for how to respond and make sure they don’t slow down when the going gets tough.

Stream 4: When all communities want to cycle

You have a good relationship with the council, they are implementing quality schemes but what’s stopping more people in your borough from cycling? How can you reach out to more communities in your area and get them pedalling?

Working through scenarios together, you’ll learn how to engage with new communities that aren’t cycling or from areas that are still lacking cycling infrastructure and develop an action plan to span active travel across your council border.

 

Agenda

9.30am Registration/tea

Registration & arrival for the Community Skills Summit with tea/coffee provided.

10.00am Opening plenary

Change is afoot – with local elections in London and other parts of the UK looming in May 2026, there is a short timetable for councils until they start ‘finishing off’ schemes before the election period, and with recent national and Mayoral elections opening up a real opportunity to get politicians to be bolder than before, expert speakers will set the scene on the day. Speakers to be announced.

11.00am Break

11.30am Morning session

1.00pm Lunch

Free vegetarian lunch provided, alongside informal networking.

2.00pm Afternoon session

3.30pm Break

4.00pm Closing session

We’ll be gathering, discussing and listening to each other, building a movement and a coalition of progressive groups and ideas to make your local area a better place to live.

5.00pm Post-event social

We will leave the venue and head off to continue our knowledge- and enthusiasm-sharing informally. Venue to be announced.

Women discussing in summit workshop session event

Come and get involved

The Community Skills Summit genuinely inspired me to change my approach to active travel. Thanks to the practical skills I learned in the workshops, the advice I was given and the contacts I made, this event helped me understand how each of us can promote active travel and safer streets in our local communities. Most of all, spending a day with so many friendly, like-minded people gave me the confidence I needed to get involved closer to home in helping more people rediscover the joy and practicality of cycling.

Suzanne, Campaigner in Kingston

Event Details

Address: University of Westminster, 35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS. (Google Maps location here)

Accessibility: The venue is fully wheelchair accessible. You can read more on accessibility for the building and campus here. If you have any other accessibility requirements, please do not hesitate to email us.

Families: Young children and babies are welcome. There will be an informal area for kids and families, but children will need to be supervised by a parent at all times while in attendance.

Dietary requirements: Event catering is vegetarian. If you have other dietary requirements (eg vegan, gluten-free), you can let us know via the booking form.

Getting there

Cycling: The venue is on the edge of central London on Marylebone Road, just south of Regent’s Park. The closest cycle route is C27, which you leave when it passes the southern end of Luxborough Street; the campus is at the north end. Cycle – Transport for London

Public transport: Baker Street (Metropolitan, Jubilee, Bakerloo, Circle/Hammersmith & City lines) is about 3 mins’ walk away. Marylebone (mainline and Bakerloo line) is 5 minutes’ walk/wheel away. Paddington is 15 mins’ walk or 10 mins’ cycle, and this is your nearest Elizabeth Line station. Marylebone (rail, not underground) is step-free, and there are lifts at Paddington between platforms and street level (though if you need step-free access from the train to the platform you may need to request assistance). It is not very far to cycle from King’s Cross/St Pancras/Euston area via C27 if you bring a bike on the train or catch a bus along the main road. There are also many buses nearby.

Cycle storage: Standard on-street bicycle racks are available in front of the entrance. Please bring a bike lock ideally with a cable. Folding cycles can be brought indoors.

Photography: There will be a photographer present at this event. If you do not wish to be photographed, please make yourself known to a member of staff on the day.

Cost: This is a free event but we would greatly appreciate any contributions to help cover the cost of putting on the Summit this year. For those in full time employment we suggest making a donation of £15. For those not in full time employment we suggest making a donation of £5. Even if you don’t make a donation, you are still very welcome to attend the event: it’s important no one is excluded. Please donate here.

And if you’re not a member already, please do consider joining LCC. We’re a charity, and all funds go towards supporting our work.

BECOME A MEMBER AND SUPPORT OUR WORK

LCC is highly effective because it's supported by 12,000 members. If you cycle in London please consider joining today. You'll be supporting our work and you'll receive a free set of CatEye lights, along with a huge range of benefits.

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