Free 'Get Walking Day' Event to be held on Saturday to Promote Healthy Living

Get Walking, Keep Walking Birmingham are holding a free event on Saturday 7th May 2011 for the Ramblers' Get Walking Day to promote everyday walking for everyday people. The event will take place at Sarehole Mill and Recreation grounds from 12-4pm. Everyone is welcome to come along and enjoy this beautiful site. There will be stalls with a variety of activities, and healthy lifestyle information. Birmingham Friends of the Earth will at the event, holding a stall and discussing our campaigns.

Walking is a brilliant way to get and stay healthy, and is easy to fit into everyday life. Walking is a 'lifestyle exercise' - which means you can make time for it without much change to your daily routine. Walking is the easiest, most accessible, cost effective, and enjoyable way for most people to increase their physical activity. It requires no special expertise, and no equipment other than a reasonable pair of shoes. It is generally safe for individuals with medical conditions and those who have never exercised because it is possible to start gently and increase capacity over time. Walking needs little preparation; it can happen at any time by stepping out of your front door. It can be fitted into lifestyles, such as using stairs rather than lifts and getting off the train a stop earlier. It is one of the forms of exercise that will be most appealing to women — as well as being social rather than competitive, it fits into a busy day.

Regular walking can also improve your health. Walking can burn 500-1000 calories a week by walking 6-12 miles for an average weight person, which can reduce the risk of premature death by 20-30%. Other health benefits of walking include reducing: cardiovascular disease (coronary heart disease and stroke), as well as ‘risk factors’ such as high blood pressure and cholesterol; cancer (particularly bowel cancer, and breast cancer in post-menopausal women); type 2 diabetes; and obesity. Walking also improves musculoskeletal health (for example osteoarthritis and lower back pain); and mental health, happiness and well-being.

The UK’s Department of Health guidelines state: For general health, adults should do 30 minutes a day of moderate intensity physical activity, on five or more days of the week. Children and young people need to exercise for at least an hour each day.

Not only does walking improve people’s health, but as a sustainable way of travelling short journeys it also helps the environment. It is integral to a large range of policies, such as social inclusion, community engagement, sustainable transport, safe routes to school, climate change, biodiversity and tackling obesity.

So now that you know what you need to do, why not find your walking shoes, come to the 'Get Walking Day' on Saturday and start walking your way to a longer, happier and healthier life?

Also, come and talk to us about our campaigns to make the streets safer for everyone who wants to walk, cycle or just enjoy their local area. As we said in our response to the Birmingham core strategy, "We agree completely that pedestrians should be “at the top of the road user hierarchy and ensure that in centres and residential areas, the public realm environment reflects this priority” . Levels of public funding should reflect this above providing extra capacity for cars, air travel or High Speed Rail."

Free Discover Cycling Event

At Birmingham FoE we are keen on promoting cycling, but there's another organisation who dedicate all their time to it, so here's some information about an event they're putting on later this month.

Free Discover Cycling Event to be held on Tuesday 19th April, 7pm at Alexander Stadium, Walsall Road, Perry Barr, By Pushbikes

Pushbikes are based in our office at The Warehouse and work towards making Birmingham and the West Midlands safer and more pleasant places to cycle and to encourage people to make more journeys by bike. A recent article published in the Daily Mail quotes Mr Bennett, the Chairman of Pushbikes talking about a tiny cycle lane 50ft long - typical of Birmingham's attitude to cycling.
They hold meetings on the third Tuesday of the month at 19:30 which are open to all and are a good chance to come along and air your own views on matters arising, or ones of your own concern.

Topics of discussion which Pushbikes seeks to achieve include:

• Increasing cycling trips to 10% of non walk trips
• Creation of a 500 mile road based cycle route network
• An off-road cycle network
• 20% of pupils traveling to school by bike
• Cycle provision/priority at major junctions
• Cycle parking in (new) residences, public buildings, stations and shopping areas
• Lowering speed limits - 50% of road lengths in residential areas to be 20mph. No speed limit over 30mph elsewhere
• Cycle friendly traffic calming extended in residential areas
• Car free centres - within Queensway and Convention Centre area and selected suburbs.

Lowering speed limits from 30mph to 20mph would encourage more people to travel by bicycle as journeys would seem safer and fears of traffic would be reduced. We have also been campaigning for this for some time. There is also growing evidence of the health benefits and positive attitudes towards lowering speed limits.

Other events coming up organised by Pushbikes include these rides: Dodford Inn near Bromsgrove on Sunday 24th April; Bull's Head near Earlswood on Sunday 29th May.

A Weekend of Cycling Events

I have now gone from being a critical mass virgin to doing 2 in a weekend and then a charity bike ride on Sunday, too. I was hardly out of the saddle, although the three were quite different.

On Friday evening at 6pm I turned up at St Phillips Square for my first Critical Mass ride ever. The Birmingham event has been going (on and off) for a couple of decades now (first Friday of the month) and I have been intending to do it for a while, but always seem to forget or have something else on. The weather was fine this week, though, and there was a good turnout of happy, positive people. We wheeled around the normally intimidating big roads which are usually dominated by cars and lorries with our message that we are traffic too.

There were around 20 of us at the Friday night critical mass and lots of them said they would be out the next day for the ride to the airport, so I left very optimistic. There were no major incidents of drivers getting overly aggressive (which I'm told can happen) and it was a good chance to meet some other cyclists, although I didn't stick around for the post-ride pint, as I was hungry for tea.

They have a facebook group if you want to see what's going on and an email list if you want to receive information.

Saturday was the Ride Down the Road and the weather was foul. Almost as cold and wet as you could think of the weather being in May. I suspect that largely due to this the numbers were not as high as we were hoping they would be. The people travelling in to Brum were already committed and so all turned up, but the more local people saw the rain and understandably had second thoughts. Look at the aviation section of the Birmingham Friends of the Earth website for more information on why we were doing this and what the council is doing to prop up Birmingham International Airport.

Even so, it went pretty well, despite the more aggressive nature of some of the drivers along the A45. After a while, we went down to just the one lane to ensure nothing unpleasant happened. A report of the day and picture can be found on the bfoe website. Plane Stupid, Indy Media and the University of Warwick Students' paper all did reports, too.

On Sunday a friend of mine was doing a charity bike ride to mark the anniversary of a horrific crash she had when cycling that left her with a broken back and needing a lot of care from a specialist spinal injuries clinic. The weather for this was almost perfect and we rode from Canon Hill park along the Rea valley cycle route to Kings Norton and back. Over 120 people took part and it was great to see so many people on bikes having a good time and supporting a good cause at the same time.

If we could get the same number of people who came along on Sunday to do a critical mass and show that we want cyclists to be treated better on the roads, that'd be truly great, so anyone who can, please come along to the next one on the first Friday of next month. Also, support our 20's plenty campaign to make the roads safer all over the city.

Birmingham Transport Summit 2010 – Len Gregory's last one!

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Transport Summit at the council house in Birmingham. Whilst it wasn't quite so full of middle-aged businessmen in suits as the High Speed Rail conference the week before, it still seemed a case of style over substance and trying to impress everyone with big flashy projects, rather than local transport improvements on the ground.

Councillor Gregory was first up and did make some of the right noises about low carbon transport, but there was an insistence that this was a “carrot not stick” approach. To me this misses the point, as he is not offering a carrot to cyclists, as there is a lack of safety for them on the roads of Birmingham, to public transport users whose buses get snarled up in the congested roads of the city without being given priority or to pedestrians for whom the pavements are often in a shocking state of repair, aren't gritted and are often expected to cross busy roads without proper crossings or enforcement of speed limits to make it safer. Even though there is a pedestrian taskforce and I have heard good things of the meetings, there is little evidence of improvements on the ground.

Also notable was that he did not once mention cycling in the time he was speaking until a question was asked by John from Pushbikes at which stage he gave an answer that they had invested over a million pounds in cycling – really? I still remain convinced that he would rather bikes were kept off the agenda as much as possible, though.

There was much talk of the Camp Hill line and re-opening the stations that we have been campaigning for, which was encouraging in terms of the fact that we are listened to when public opinion is so strongly in favour, but short on substance of how quickly it can be done. With all the fervour about HS2 and “the opportunities” this brings (when it won't open for another 16 years at least), I would really like some more urgency on getting rail sorted locally in the short term, not in another 10 years' time. Unfortunately, he'd rather focus on glamorous projects like the “Gateway” project at New St, the new coach station (Mike Whitby called this the Selfridges of coach stations!) and HS2.

On buses, Councillor Gregory suggested that “the bus network works well”, which will be news to many people who suffer unreliable services and are unable to reach anywhere but the city centre with any ease. He instead blamed Birmingham's climate and the fact that it rains here, which prevents people from walking to a bus stop apparently, for the fact that people still choose car over bus. Well, in my experience, it's the waiting times and lack of reliable information at bus stops, anti-social behaviour on buses and fact that they get snarled up in traffic (making reliable journey times impossible) that puts most people off. Many people do use the bus, so obviously it's not always that bad, but I'm not sure everyone would agree that perception matches Gregory's claim that the safety record has improved dramatically and the operation to do this has been “highly successful”.

What he seemed to be most proud of was the PFI for the highway network, which he claims will bring in huge amounts of investment into this infrastructure, sort out all the problems with pavements and potholes. Generally, PFIs fall well short of what is promised, so we'll have to wait and see on this one and I don't see any point in commenting further at this stage.

There was also mention of a freight hub for distribution of good throughout the city and using canals for freight with waste carried along them too, as facilities are next to them. Promising projects, but there was not enough detail on those for BfoE to comment at this stage.

Len Gregory admitted that he would not be missed by many when he leaves his post during this speech and I for one will be looking for much more ambition from the next cabinet member for transport, to take Birmingham towards a low carbon transport future.

Community groups get together for 20's plenty meeting

Saturday 30th January Birmingham Friends of the Earth are organising a meeting for representatives of community groups to get together and talk about making their roads safer.

After spending last year campaigning on 20s plenty, largely working on getting letters signed by individuals asking the council to implement default speed limits and sign the council petition, this year we are intent on building a coalition of groups to show a wider base of support. The scheme has been incredibly successful in other places where it has been implemented, such as Portsmouth and Oxford, so it is time for the residents of Birmingham to get a safer environment, too.

There has already been great interest in attending from many neighbourhood forums and we expect it to be a really good event, with a short presentation at the beginning outlining a few aims and then a chance for everyone to interact, share ideas and experiences and make some plans for future collaborations and ways of sharing information.

It has already been publicised on other local blogs, such as this one from Birchfield, so please pass the message on yourself to anyone who may be interested in attending.

People don't need to have any experience of campaigning, just a desire to work together with people in their neighbourhood to try to improve things and build some more community feeling.

It will take place at 10.30am on January 30th at the Journey Metropolitan Community Church in Digbeth (opposite the Birmingham Friends of the Earth building on Shaw's passage).

Contact anne@birminghamfoe.org.uk if you want to come or want any more details about the meeting.

20's Plenty for Birmingham - Help our Campaign

Birmingham FoE has been campaigning for a default speed limit of 20mph on all residential areas across Birmingham and recently I have been helping to organise the campaign locally.

The recent successes in other UK cities, such as Portsmouth and Oxford, have been very encouraging and research has showed that the public is definitely in favour of a lower speed limit.

The example of Birmingham as the second biggest city in the UK would send a positive message all over the country and really help in creating a greener and cleaner city. But more importantly it would help make Birmingham a safer city and encourage its inhabitants to walk or cycle more on roads where they do not feel secure at the moment. The change in attitude fostered by drivers associating residential areas with safer speeds would reduce road casualties and improve the quality of life.

To raise awareness in the heart of communities and get people involved to spread the word around where they live, we are looking for Community Champions following the successful example of Bristol's campaign.

If you are interested in becoming a community champion for your neighbourhood or knows somebody who might be, please contact us at campaigns@birminghamfoe.org.uk. There is a lot of work to do to persuade the people in charge of roads at Birmingham City Council that this is the way to go, but we really feel this is an important campaign and we need your help.

It's time to get together and make Birmingham a safer place to live!

In Town Without My Car Day 2009

Every year we moan about the council not doing anything about In Town Without My Car Day and then leave it too late to organise a big event. But leaving your car at home shouldn't be such a big deal, should it?

Tens of thousands of people travel to work every day without using a car and over 30% of households in Birmingham don't actually own a car so are reliant on other means of transport to get around.

So, what happened when Birmingham Friends of the Earth challenged the 50 most powerful and influential people in the region (according to the Birmingham Post) to give up their cars for the day?

What did we expect? Polite refusals? To be completely ignored? For everyone to say yes?

I was not sure what would happen, but I thought that, in the current climate of individuals being seen to take a lead on being greener, it might just work. Over the past few weeks I have been collecting responses, prompting those who didn't reply, contacting the press and other media about the story and the interest has grown and grown to the extent that Birmingham City Council actually put up a message of support for it on their website.

If you want to know what the results of this challenge were person by person, then read on.

1)Paul Thandi: NEC Group – No reply, other than acknowledgements from his PA that she had passed on my emails to him.
2)Paul Kehoe: BIA – I was informed by his PA that as he was away on leave until just before it he could not do it.
3)Lord Digby Jones – I was informed by his PA that he is out of town and not able to participate.
4)David Bintley: Birmingham Royal Ballet – No response received at all.
5)Gary Taylor: Argent Group – Informed us that he cycles at least once a week to work now and will be away on Tuesday, but will cycle the day before.
6)Neil Rami: Marketing Birmingham – Will also be away on the day, but the rest of his company will be doing it, apparently.
7)Clive Dutton: Birmingham City Council Planning and Regeneration – Said he would certainly do it.
8)Professor David Bailey: Coventry University – Said he would be taking bus and/or train as usual.
9)Andris Nelsons: CBSO conductor – Is in Vienna on the day, so unable to take part.
10)Mike Whiby; Leader of Birmingham City Council – Has “long-standing commitments on the day in question which make it difficult to honour if he could not use a car”, although he will try to walk between meetings.
11)Christine Braddock: Birmingham Metropolitan College – No response
12)Julie Moore: CEO of local NHS – No response.
13)Andrew Mitchell: MP for Sutton Coldfield – Will be in London cycling to work as every day.
14)Glynn Purnell: Celebrity Chef – Unable to do it for “personal reasons”.
15)Paul Tylsley: Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council – Not in Birmingham on the day.
16)Liam Byrne: MP for Hodge Hill and cabinet member – No response.
17)Stephen Hughes: Chief Executive, Birmingham City Council – Will catch a train to the airport, which, unfortunately, is unavoidable to keep commitments. Always walks to work when in the city.
18)Suzie Norton: Screen West Midlands – Is on maternity leave.
19)Professor Lord Kumar Bhattacharyya: Warwick Manufacturing Group – No response.
20)Ravi Kant: Head of Tata – Didn't attempt to contact him.
21)Randy Lerner: CEO, Aston Villa – Not in town on the day. I requested someone else high profile from the club, but got no response.
22)Anthony McCourt: Birmingham Development Company – Walks to work every day.
23)Jason Wouhra: East End Foods – No response.
24)Salma Yaqoob: Councillor – Will walk or use public transport instead of car for the day.
25)Stuart Griffiths: CEO, Birmingham Hippodrome – No response.
26)Phillip Singleton: City Design, Birmingham City Council – Will take the bus.
27)Professor Nick James: University of Birmingham – Cycles at least once a week and takes the train from Longbridge other days.
28)David Smith: Jaguar-Land Rover - Didn't attempt to contact him.
29)Dr Waldemar Bujalski: University of Birmingham – No response.
30)Justice Williams: Inner City Creative Media Group – Unable to contact.
31)Clare Edwards: Gigbeth – Works from home most days and says she'll take public transport if needed on the day.
32)Trevor Foster: Bigwood/Lockton – No response.
33)Paul Bassi: Bonde Wolfe – Unable to contact.
34)Tom Lawes: The Electric Cinema – No response.
35)Andeep Mangel: ICAEW – Unable to contact.
36)Paul Bradshaw: BCU – May well be working from home, but doesn't own a car for environmental reasons, anyway.
37)Helga Henry: Fierce Earth – No response.
38)Simon Wales: THSH – Was supportive and often takes the bus to work, but has to take equipment to the NEC for a stall on the day in his car.
39)James Yarker: Stan's Cafe Director – Always cycles around the city and takes the train when travelling to other towns.
40)Professor Julia King: Vice Chancellor, Aston University – Out of town on the day, but encouraged all staff at Aston to take part and leave their cars at home.
41)Kerry Thomas: Fused Magazine – Very supportive and would have done it if in town, but away on the day.
42)Steve Dyson: Editor, Birmingham Mail – Unable to do it due to meetings and commitments in several parts of the city.
43)Bennie Gray: Custard Factory – No response.
44)Mick Laverty: AWM – Unable to contact.
45)Stuart Rogers: Birmingham Rep – Happy to do it and will take the bus.
46)Paul Hadley – Rhubarb Radio – Works from home and says he always takes the train when travelling in and out of Birmingham.
47)Adrian Goldberg: The Stirrer – Will be in London on the day, where he will use public transport for all his journeys. Wishes the same was possible in this area.
48)Jerry Blackett: Birmingham Chamber of Commerce – Will take train and folding bike, as he often does.
49)Ian Austin: MP, Dudley North and regional minister – No response.
50)Martin Mullaney: Cabinet member, Birmingham City Council – Will be taking his scooter.

So, what can we see from this?

Well, apart from the lack of responses from 14 people – about a third, I was encouraged by the number of people who are very much aware of the issue and already use other forms of transport on a regular basis. Almost half of the “power 50” gave us such positive responses about their travelling habits and I would suggest that this means a minority of these people take their cars into town every day.

What about being without a car every day?

This is, of course, the most important point to be made. It's all very well doing a one-off attempt to be more sustainable, but if we're going to cut transport emissions and congestion and deal with the related health issues in this city we need to get more people out of cars and onto public transport, bikes or walking as a matter of course. This would enable us all to use the space we have in this city more usefully.
We are working hard on campaigns such as “20's plenty for Birmingham”, “Re-open Our Stations” and “Better Buses for Birmingham” to tackle the issues that prevent people feeling that they can get around the city without using a car. If you want to help us with any of the campaigns, please contact us on campaigns@birminghamfoe.org.uk to find out how.

Future events

By next year I sincerely hope that steps will have been made to improve the experience for people using public transport, walking or cycling in the city and that when the council launches its own In Town Without Your Car Day events, we'll see streets filled not with cars, but with people out there talking to one another and enjoying sharing the space together.
Does anyone else agree that it would be a good idea?

E-petitions R Us

The council now has a site with e-petitions where we can ask them to do things that are within their power. I had a bit of trouble getting them to accept the wording of mine about train stations, but generally I think this has to be a good way of promoting campaigns in the digital age.
Anyway, we have three big transport campaigns at the moment and each one now has its own e-petition. Please sign them if you want Birmingham city council to do something about giving us a better transport system.

Firstly for our 20's plenty campaign to make the roads safer for everyone and encourage greener forms of transport, such as cycling and walking go here:

http://epetition.birmingham.public-i.tv/petition.php?id=51

Secondly, for our Better Buses for Birmingham campaign, this is the link:

http://epetition.birmingham.public-i.tv/petition.php?id=60

Thirdly, for the campaign to get railway stations re-opened in Birmingham: http://epetition.birmingham.public-i.tv/petition.php?id=67

I hope that we can get a lot of support behind these campaigns, but at the moment the old fashioned ways have got us far more signatures for each one than the electronic forms. Let's promote them wherever possible and show that we can mobilise support through the net.

Launch pad next Thursday - 18th June

Concerned about the environment?
Can you make a difference in Birmingham?

If you've been reading our blog for a while and want to get involved with our campaigns, come to Launch pad, 18th June 7.30 pm.

At: The Warehouse, 54-57 Allison Street, Digbeth, Birmingham B5 5TH

Birmingham Friends of the Earth invite you to Launch pad, an evening to give you a flavour of the current campaigns we are running around Birmingham. You may just be starting getting interested in campaigning, or someone that wants to get updated our campaigns. By the end of the night we can guarantee you will have done something to make Birmingham a better place. The Campaigns we are covering are:

Get Serious
Campaign to put pressure on Birmingham council to make sure they are making serious steps to make Birmingham greener.


Vote with your feet on Dec 5th
Time is running out to keep us safe from climate change. At the UN climate summit in Copenhagen this December world leaders will decide how to tackle Climate Change. Working with other groups in Stop Climate Chaos, we want the this march to be the biggest march and send a message to the world leaders that the time is now to act.


20's plenty
We are calling for the default limit on all residential roads in Birmingham to be set at 20 mph to make them safer for cyclists, pedestrians all road users and residents. Following the success of this campaign in other cities our 20's plenty campaign is hitting the streets here to get the message out to public and community groups. Help us make this happen.


Fix the food chain
The food chain in the UK is a mess. All over Europe we feed our animals soy feed that comes from South America where the rainforest is being destroyed and people are being thrown off their land. We want to turn this around. Come and get involved in the campaign to make sure we have planet-friendly farming in the UK.

We hope to see some new faces there. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

Joe and Mary (Campaigns Coordinators)

Video support for our 20's plenty campaign

The campaign we are running for 20 mph speed limits to be introduced on all residential roads has been gaining support. We now have a residents' group interested in helping us in Billesley and media interest is also building.
Several media students and bloggers have made films about it and here are links to a couple of them:

http://www.birminghamrecycled.co.uk/energy/friends-of-the-earth-lead-birmingham-20mph-residential-movement

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KwrDtAj8gxk

We still need people to come and help us with the campaign, so any support people can give with getting the message out there and showing Len Gregory and the other councillors that this is the way forward would be much appreciated.

Simple Change - Huge Difference

The transport action group at Birmingham Friends of the Earth are currently putting their efforts into trying to get a default 20mph speed limit introduced on unclassified roads (not A or B roads) throughout Birmingham. This would be a very cost effective way of changing the lives of a huge number of people. No expensive calming measures or cameras are called for, just changing the signs from 30 to 20. We are working together with the following organisations so far:

• Living Streets
• Campaign for Better Transport
• Roadpeace
  

We are also looking to build a coalition with many more, so if you would like to get involved, let us know. There is more information on the Birmingham FoE website or you can write to
Birmingham@20splentyforus.org.uk .

Getting safer roads would mean more people feeling confident to cycle and use local amenities within walking distance. It would also cut carbon emissions as drivers would not be accelerating so much between the frequent stops that are made in urban journeys. Several towns across the UK have already introduced these limits with very impressive results, but if we could get Birmingham, the UK's second city to do it, that would be a great achievement.

There is opposition to it from motoring organisations, of course, but they do not have any strong arguments that I have seen. A debate has been taking place in the letters pages of the Birmingham Post, which you can read below by following the links:

• More can be done to bring down road casualties
  
• Reducing Speed limit not the answer to fewer casualties
  
• Cutting speed limits to 20mph does save lives
• 20 mph limit is needed for road users safety
  

We still continue to campaign on better public transport, too, but this seems a vitally important first step to bringing about the (must use buzzword) modal shift in transport that's required to make Birmingham greener.