We’re excited about the upcoming release of more information on the Access Fund.

What is the Access Fund?

The Access Fund will run for 3 years from 2017 to 2020. It is a pot of £580m of central Government sustainable transport funding, of which £60m is revenue funding.

The focus of the Fund is likely to prioritise

1. Sustainable and accessible transport projects that will help people access work, training, education and services.
2. Projects which help improve walking and cycling
3. Approaches that have already proven to be successful

Strength to Strength

At Love to Ride, we’ve had much success with DfT funding – going back to the Cycling England days, then LSTF, the Transition Fund and now the Access Fund.  

Love to Ride has evolved from being a ‘Challenge’ programme to being a year-round behaviour change and encouragement platform. We now collect GPS data throughout the year, automatically, providing planners with very useful data.

We know we can continue to support Councils across England to achieve their cycling goals and help them to win funding through the Access Fund.

Adding weight to your local programme

We can add weight to your Access Fund application by including a Love to Ride programme that’s tailored to your area.  Benefits include:

• A proven programme – that’s already been successful
• A strong workplace and travel to work focus (likely to be a key element of the criteria)
• Promoting and boosting your other cycling projects through the Love to Ride platform and community
• Providing you with GPS data on where people are riding locally

Supporting your application

Writing an Access Fund application is a big job!  But we can help you with the cycling section.

We are very used to supporting local authorities in writing their bids, particularly the cycling encouragement sections.  If you’re interested in finding out how we can help, please get in touch. We’re happy to help!

Worth a read

Beth Hiblin is a well known Behaviour Change Consultant and she has written this nice blog post about getting prepared for the release of the Access Fund:

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/road-from-lstf-access-fund-beth-hiblin

Want to know as soon as the Fund is announced?
As soon as more information about Access Fund criteria is released by the DfT, we’ll be straight on it. If you’d like to get an email from us as soon as we know, then…

Are you interested in how you can use GPS phone app data to make better planning decisions?

At Love to Ride we collect data via a smartphone app that automatically records people’s rides, walks and other transportation trips. People don’t need to press start or stop on the app at the beginning or end of their trip, it’s all done automatically.

Things to be aware of…

Data collected with GPS phone apps provides a valuable opportunity to really understand how people are travelling around your area by bike. However, there are some key things to keep in mind as you look to analyse and utilize this data.

Check out this short video by Love to Ride CEO Thomas Stokell:

At work and can’t see the video? Email it to your phone here!

Interested in learning more? Get in touch – we’d love to hear from you. together@lovetoride.net

This coming September, councils, advocates, cycling organisations and riders across the UK will be working together to give cycling a big push.

Three key aims:

1. Getting more people to discover how easy and enjoyable riding can be
2. Getting more people riding for transportation
3. Collecting GPS data that can be used to make better decisions on where to put cycle infrastructure

We’re changing up the format this year

The Challenge will involve organisations, their departments, staff and the general public taking part in a fun competition to encourage more people to ride, more often. This year, people will be awarded points for riding and encouraging others to ride too. There will be prizes a plenty!

How your city can benefit?

Because this is a National Campaign, there are significant benefits and economies of scale that you can take advantage of.

The Challenge can help you to achieve your goals for cycling, promote your existing cycling initiatives to both existing and new riders, and collect valuable GPS data.

All UK councils are invited

Whatever your budget, you are invited to partner with us and promote the National Challenge in your area. If you do have budget, then we can really boost the results, outcomes and data for you.

Interested in learning more? Request some more information by emailing sam@lovetoride.net