Cycling and the Mayor
Local government reorganisation in Hampshire & the Solent, and what it means for cycling
An open meeting on 1st December, featuring Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns at Cycling UK
Under Local Government Reorganisation plans, Hampshire and the Solent will soon have a new Combined Authority (CA) with an elected Mayor who will have powers similar to the ones that already exist in major cities like Manchester and Birmingham. Some candidates have already started to emerge, and next year we’ll see the first Mayoral election.
Then by 2028 the existing councils in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight area will be replaced by just a handful of large unitary councils.
This means big changes in the way transport, travel and roads (and possibly even railways) are managed in our area.
Monday 1st December
Venue: The South Downs Social, Kings Walk, Middle Brook Street, Winchester SO23 8AF.
7:30pm – 9:30pm
Doors open 7:15pm
Refreshments available to buy
Limited cycle parking inside the venue; plenty of cycle racks immediately outside.
Our open meeting on 1st December will look at what this means for cycling and active travel, and how local campaigners should be approaching the upcoming Mayoral elections. Who will be responsible for what under the new arrangements? What questions should we be asking the candidates for mayor?
Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns at Cycling UK, will be giving us a national perspective on these questions, based on experiences elsewhere in the country
We’ll then have a quick guide to the local perspective: the area that the Hampshire & Solent Combined Authority will cover and the rival proposals for reorganising the councils in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
Finally we’ll discuss how active travel campaigners should approach the Mayoral election. What should we expect? How can we ensure that cycling is part of the conversation during the election? What are the big questions that we should put to mayoral candidates? Should campaign groups across the region come up with an agreed set of “asks” for the candidates?
If you’re planning to come, please fill in this registration form so that we know how many people to expect.. There’s no charge for attending.
CycleWight would be interested in any materials that came out of the meeting. We would be interested in any further meeting that takes place though because of our situation the time and place would have to recognise our transport issues. Would it bet possible for future evening meetings to have online provision?
Hi Tim, sorry you couldn’t make it for understandable reasons. We had intended to livestream the meeting last night by Zoom, but unfortunately we weren’t successful due to technical problems. However we have recorded the session and we’ll share the recording in due course.
Rob, Cycle Winchester