South Yorkshire Active Travel with Ed Clancy OBE

I was excited to spend an hour recording our latest podcast with Olympic cyclist, Ed Clancy last month, learning more about his role as Active Travel Commissioner for South Yorkshire, and how routes like the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT) can be used to promote Active Travel.

A Yorkshire lad, Ed was born in Barnsley and brought up in the Holme Valley in West Yorkshire before moving to Manchester with British Cycling.

During the podcast we hear about Ed’s route into cycling from the days he relied on bike hand-me-downs from his big brother to the choice he had to make after A-Levels, between joining the Great British Cycling Academy or going to university to study Engineering.

Ed reveals one of his favourite sections of the TPT is Thurgoland Tunnel in Barnsley and he recounts the time when bands were playing in the tunnel as he navigated his way through.

There’s also a moving moment in the podcast when Ed recalls a recent visit to Wellgate Junior & Infant School in Barnsley where his Mum worked when he was growing up, returning years later, after his great Olympic journey and as Active Travel Commissioner, to open a small infrastructure park at the bottom of the School grounds, with a little bike track and crossings.

Ed touches on life after professional cycling and how he became Active Travel Commissioner, working behind the scenes to develop the strategies necessary to establish Active Travel as a regular part of the lives of people living in South Yorkshire. During the episode Ed also explains how routes like the TPT play key roles in providing opportunities for Active Travel whether it be as part of a commute into work, a walk/wheel to the shops or just enabling users to exercise and engage with nature.

Ed is clearly passionate about the positive benefits of Active Travel on physical and mental health, life expectancy, reducing demand on the NHS, pollution and road congestion, and is very clear on the steps necessary to secure the change necessary to provide people with the capability, opportunity and motivation to embrace Active Travel.

Ed ends the podcast by challenging us all to define what Active Travel means to us as individuals, remembering it means different things to different people, and to speak positively about it and its benefits whether in chats on social media or in the pub!

So, what does Active Travel mean to me? It means regular exercise, walking, park-running, walking the dogs and as the weather improves, cycling the 5-mile round trip to weekly choir rehearsals, to attempt a 24-mile round trip commute along the TPT from home in the Holme Valley to the TPT national office in Barnsley and to try and get my family and friends to do the same!

We’d love to know what it means to you too, so please get in touch and let us know!

Listen to the full podcast on our podcast channel at: https://shows.acast.com/trans-pennine-trail-national-office/episodes/.

If you have a TPT related subject that you would like to write about, please get in touch with the office at info@transpenninetrail.org.uk

Date: 17th May 2024 

     
Robert Drummond