Making active places 2026

Good morning, everyone. And thank you, Chris [Boardman], for that introduction.

It’s really, really good to be here with so many of you this morning (22 September 2026).

I’ve often found myself in Manchester in recent months – I’ve no idea why – but somebody (perhaps that bloke called Andy [Burnham]) tells me it’s the place to be.

I also know there is a panel discussion later, so I won’t take up too much time in my opening remarks.

However, I did want to touch on briefly about the why, the how and the what of this government’s approach to active travel.

Why active travel matters – to me personally and to the government as a whole. 

And what we, and I mean all of us here, are delivering.

So let’s start, as all good stories as they do, in Swindon – my hometown.

For me, it starts with a blue bike with a white basket and a set of very solid stabilisers – which was my first bike as a 3- or 4-year-old.

Now it won’t surprise anyone that, in the 1980s, the town which gave us 6 roundabouts in one (which is otherwise known as the magic roundabout) – wasn’t particularly cycle-friendly.

 As a teenager, a bike gave me my first job.

Two early morning paper rounds, on my dad’s old road bike, with 2 massive orange bags nestled under either armpit, all done in the hours before college. I just wish I could get up those same hills now without stopping.

A way to clear my head out on the hills of the Ridgeway when I was doing my A-levels – a route I still do now but with the aid of an electric Brompton.

It gave me independence, which is at the heart of what I believe active travel is all about. And it gave me joy. It never really leaves you, does it?

It didn’t leave me in my 20s, when I cycled 7 miles across London when I first moved to our capital city to do a temp job, because I couldn’t afford the cost of a travel card.

It didn’t leave me as the Deputy Mayor of London, where, alongside Will Norman, I helped deliver segregated cycle lanes and lower speeds on some of London’s busiest roads.