A week in the life... Sustrans' Active in Ashington by Mark Curr

Adam Bell (right) and me (left) promoting Active in Ashington's bike swap event

I coordinate the Active in Ashington project along with project officer Adam Bell in the Wansbeck region. We work with local people to help them to walk and cycle more as a means of getting from A to B whilst improving their health. Based at the Hirst Welfare Centre at the heart of the community since 2008, our project offers support and advise on how and where to walk and cycle more, local events and activities, loan bikes, on-site bike repair and bike maintenance courses.

We feel that one key element to making our project successful is working with the local community, and in partnership with other local organisations to provide the best service.

For example, we recycle donated bikes and work with Wansbeck Works and Wansbeck on Wheels to offer loan bikes to the long term unemployed as a form of transportation to job interviews and the workplace. Our project is run by the sustainable transport charity Sustrans, and is also part of Travel Actively, a consortium of 50 practical projects funded by the Big Lottery Fund to get more people active through everyday walking and cycling. We also receive funding from (name match funders) to help run our project here in Ashington.

Below is my diary from a week in December 2009 - filled with activity, it gives a small insight into what our project does.

Monday

Despite a particularly busy week ahead, we were heavily involved in the planning of the Travel Actively conference for project officers in the North-East. As a member of the steering group, we have been working to create a useful, informative and most importantly fun day of information sharing and the chance to learn from each other.

A number of meetings in central Newcastle took us away from our base in Ashington, but in our absence, John, one of our volunteer walk leaders delivered our usual Monday walk with the NHS Ashmore House mental health drop-in centre.

Ashmore House has proven to be a great partner, and in turn, our walks there very popular. Each month we take Ashmore service users walking somewhere new and different to what they’re used to. Soon we will be assessing the wider impacts of the walks on their mental wellbeing as well as their physical health.

Tuesday

Today we held the conference in Newcastle. We kicked the day off with an outdoor activity. Everyone split into groups and conducted an ‘active travel street audit’, which involved going out onto the streets of Newcastle and looking at common barriers to walking and cycling in the city, from poor crossing facilities to unclear bike lanes.

Gathering back at the main venue, we brainstormed what we found and how to tackle the issues that we found. Our project has recently been assisting a few novice adult cyclists to findtheir feet locally so it was great to look critically at local transport design as an obstacle to walking and cycling and how we could start work at looking to overcome them. Overall the day went very well, with everyone coming away with new ideas, contacts, and potential partnerships. 

Wednesday

"Many of this group commented that they enjoyed the walk greatly, but they would have never thought to go before."

Today we will be running three events all in one go – it is a very big day for us.

Firstly we took a walking group of early childhood students to the nearby Choppington Woods. We have recently been appointed to the steering group for the Northumberland College student and staff health improvement strategy. The course lecturers want to promote physical activity and access to green spaces for future generations. Our walking programmes can, and are currently, providing this for them.

As it is December, thick coats were needed, and it was squelchy underfoot in parts, and yet everyone wore a smile. Many of this group commented that they enjoyed the walk greatly, but they would have never thought to go before.

As well as the walks, we have several other projects in the pipeline for Northumberland College, including a health programme for staff, putting in cycle parking, and further promotion of what our project can provide.

The second event was with Claire, a project partner and local NHS physical activity specialist, who would be our advocate at the North-East healthy business conference.

By providing information about our programme, she has given our project a presence that we are eager to establish as we wish to work with local businesses, helping them to create an active and healthy workforce.By placing bikes at workplaces (as we have before) they can be used by staff and service users to access work and make short local trips. We see the bikes as a win-win for everyone as it is a beneficial staff welfare programme for the workplace, and it also helps the community to be active and cut down on short car journeys.

The final event of today was a bike ride with a local fundraising group.
Twenty students and their teacher are training to complete a long bike ride to fundraise for NSPCC, and we have been helping them with their training over a series of bike rides. Today we headed to the Newbiggin coast via Woodhorn Park – all in fancy dress.
We stopped for a coffee and cake before returning. This group have been enthusiastic and we have enjoyed giving them the opportunity to cycle socially- we certainly turned a lot of heads today!

 
Thursday

Walk leader John led a community walk from our base at the Hirst Welfare Centre, whilst the rest of us focussed on the bike workshop. Our volunteers Geoff, Daniel and John slogged away under Adam’s lead all day to repair as many bikes as possible so they could be ready for a big bike event planned for the weekend.

The large workload came from a consignment of bicycles (largely donated by the Northumbria Police) that needed to be overhauled so that they can be given out to the people who need them in upcoming projects. The Northumbria police have been key partners of ours since starting the programme and have given us a lot of support (and bikes!)

Our workshop has come on in leaps and bounds, from gaining better equipment to having completed training for all of our workshop volunteers so they can work to a safe and high standard. The quality of work we can do there now is of great benefit to the community as we can get more and more bikes out and ready to be used by those who need it.

Friday

It was as busy in the workshop again, continuing from Thursday’s workload to get the bikes ready for the weekend’s events.
We spent the day putting the final flourishes for the event in place. I was very pleased to see that we had gained a lot of local press coverage to advertise it.

Saturday

Today is the result of Adam (and our volunteers) hard work over the past several weeks in preparing as many bikes for loan to Ashington.

We received many visitors, met some great people, and more importantly, gave out bikes to people who needed them. It was great to meet families that were eager to keep their children cycling, and we enjoyed helping them to do exactly that.

With the left-over bikes that we didn’t give out, we will be organising a Christmas bike giveaway that we hope to secure some more press coverage for.
We will be promoting this and what our project can do at a series of school assemblies next week.

We met with Dennis, the new owner of the Old Ship tavern on the beautiful Newbiggin coastline. Dennis got in contact as he was extremely eager to work with us on cycling, and we are equally keen to work with him and his patrons. So today we launched the Old Ship/ Active in Ashington Cycling club.

Sunday

It turned out to be a fantastic family day out. We rode on the National Cycle Network and nearby QE2 park with a group of 18 cyclists of varying abilities, including several people that by their own confession ‘hadn’t exercised in years’.

Afterwards we returned to the Old Ship for a well-earned roast dinner.

This was yet another really rewarding day for our project, and there are signs that we have sown seeds that will lead to being a very successful long-term project.

We look forward to future work with Dennis, including the installation of some cycle parking at the Old Ship.

Mark Curr December 2009