Streets Ahead

The recent local elections have created a national battle for power within the ruling Labour Party. After suffering substantial losses to Reform UK and the Green Party, even traditionally safe Labour councils have changed hands or been thrown into “no overall control”. Across the country, Reform UK gained 1,452 seats, the Greens gained 441, while Labour lost 1,498 seats.

In this episode of Streets Ahead, Laura and Adam focus on the local fallout of those elections; this is the type of politics closest to local people, and it’s also the structure used to deliver sustainable and active travel schemes.

Joining Laura and Adam are two guests with a deep understanding of local politics:

Cllr John Morris, a Labour Councillor in Newham - Labour lost control of the Council and saw a surge in Independent candidates taking seats, leaving Newham in no overall control - but with a pro-car Labour mayor, Forhad Hussain. John was Deputy Cabinet Member for Highways and Sustainable Transport under the previous administration.

Martin Price, outgoing Chair of Better Streets for Birmingham, a campaign group focused on safer streets and active travel. Birmingham is another one of those councils thrown into No Overall Control - and in the wider West Midlands, there is now an existing Labour Metro Mayor, 2x Reform Councils, 1x Labour Council and 4x No Overall Control.

Links:
John Morris' blog, on No Such Thing As A Safe Seat https://plaistovian.substack.com/p/there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-safe
On Birmingham's plan to become a big Low Traffic Neighbourhood: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/04/birmingham-to-become-a-super-sized-low-traffic-neighbourhood
And how that plan was inspired by the Belgian city of Ghent: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/20/how-a-belgian-port-city-inspired-birminghams-car-free-ambitions
Newham's Living Streets local group: https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/get-involved/local-groups/newham-local-group/
And our interview with the late Waseem Zaffar, formerly Cabinet Member for Transport and Environment at Birmingham City Council, who sadly died this year https://shows.acast.com/streets-ahead/episodes/episode-9-the-west-midlands
His successor, Liz Clements, also featured on the podcast, as part of a panel discussion https://shows.acast.com/streets-ahead/episodes/live-from-london-walking-and-cycling-conference

For ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We’ll even send you some stickers!

We’re also on Bluesky and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://bsky.app/profile/podstreetsahead.bsky.social
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This episode of Streets Ahead examines the issue of children’s access to neighbourhood streets, and the impact of car dominance on child health. Discussing the issue with Adam and Laura are:

Alice Ferguson, who co-founded play streets charity, Playing Out, in 2011, and ran it for 15 years until it wound up this year. In 2009 Alice and a neighbour developed the idea of a temporary play street and two years later started a charity dedicated to helping others to do the same. This became a UK-wide resident-led movement with a huge impact on perceptions of what streets are for.

Tim Gill, researcher, writer and independent scholar based in London, and the author of two books on child-centred design. These are Urban Playground: How child-friendly urban planning and design can save cities and No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society. His organisation is Rethinking Childhood https://rethinkingchildhood.com/about/

Alice and Tim have produced a new report, called: Streets for play, streets for freedom: How a “child lens” would transform transport policy.

This was born from frustration and outrage that decades of warm words and research around the importance of tackling road safety for children’s wellbeing, as well as their safety, has failed to translate into action. In those years traffic on residential roads has risen and car-centric thinking has arguably become further entrenched, despite pockets of best practice.

Tim Gill and Alice Ferguson talk about their decades of work on this topic and what a child-friendly street would look like. The discussion ranges to play streets to Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, to tackling systemic problems of car dependence and 'motornormativity' that sustain the status quo. First of all, however, we need to really understand the negative impacts of the status quo.

The effect on children, Gill argues is a century-long pandemic that’s hidden in plain sight. Alice points out children are absent from political debate, and so their views are often not represented, despite knowledge of the harm.

For ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We’ll even send you some stickers!

We’re also on Bluesky and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://bsky.app/profile/podstreetsahead.bsky.social

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Streets Ahead dives into London’s Vision Zero Action Plan 2, the Mayor’s roadmap to eliminating death and serious injury on the capital’s roads by 2041.

Laura Laker and Adam Tranter are joined by London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner, Will Norman, to assess progress so far and interrogate whether the ambition matches delivery. We explore falling casualty rates, the expansion of cycle infrastructure, and the role of 20mph limits and vehicle safety standards, while asking tougher questions about enforcement, policing, and political headwinds.

The conversation also tackles some of the more contentious issues shaping London’s streets today, from SUVs and side-road zebras to the future of cycling in central London and the balance between different road users.

You can read more about London's Vision Zero Action Plan 2 here: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/protecting-our-network/road-safety/vision-zero-for-london

For ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We’ll even send you some stickers!

We’re also on Bluesky and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://bsky.app/profile/podstreetsahead.bsky.social
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode Laura joins a host of (almost entirely female) guests, out on the road in London to talk about how cycle routes deliver - or not - for women’s safety.

In early 2025 Laura interviewed women on the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Freedom Ride, a mass ride, after dark, to highlight the safety concerns women face when cycling in London - and how some of the capital’s routes just don’t feel that safe at night.

At the time the Women's Network had just launched a report that showed almost a quarter, 24%, of the city’s cycle routes did not feel safe at night. This meant routes that were isolated, and in some cases poorly lit. The Network’s previous research found that a third of women stop cycling in winter because of safety issues. It also revealed the shocking levels of harassment some women experience on the streets.

Unfortunately some of the audio from that ride was unusable because of the challenges of cycling while recording - so undeterred, a year later Laura went out to gather more recordings and find out what has happened for women's safety in the last year.

In January 2026, Laura went along to the opening of an almost-finished cycle lane and two junction redesigns at one of London’s worst collision hotspots, at Lambeth Bridge.

This was sadly the site of a fatal collision in which art designer Moira Gemmill, was killed while cycling in 2015, when a distracted lorry driver turned into her path.

This episode Laura spoke to:

Kate Bartlett, the mastermind behind the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network’s on-the-ground research around the social safety of London’s cycle infrastructure
Zoe Garbett, Green London Assembly Member
Kerena Fussell, London Cycling Campaign Women’s Network
Deborah from Leytonstone, LCC Women’s Network
Natalie Lyndsey, on the Board of Trustees of the London Cycling Campaign
Helen Cansick, head of safe and healthy streets investment planning for Transport for London
Will Norman, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner

Coverage of the LCC Women's Network's first report from 2024 https://nla.london/news/what-stops-women-cycling-in-london

The London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network report, Women’s Freedom After Dark, 2025: https://lcc.org.uk/news/womens-freedom-after-dark/

Moira Gemmill’s death at the hands of a distracted lorry driver: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-39027676

Work to improve Lambeth Bridge for cycling https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2025/january/tfl-begins-next-phase-of-work-to-improve-safety-at-lambeth-bridge
For ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We’ll even send you some stickers!

We’re also on Bluesky and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://bsky.app/profile/podstreetsahead.bsky.social

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This time Adam, Ned and Laura meet to discuss local elections and Ned's recent trip to India. Close to home, the trio discusses the phenomenon of the local being national. From Andy Street and Andy Burnham's successes as regional mayors, to a Court of Appeal ruling that removing LTNs by the Tower Hamlets mayor would be illegal, local politics shapes national politics.

And with the political landscape more fractured than ever, active travel is on the political agenda again. The fractures caused by budget cuts can show up as U-turns on cycling and walking policy and sudden losses of confidence in local authorities in the face of public challenge. Can local authorities in the UK learn from politicians steps and missteps, and can campaigners help steel them for the road ahead?

Ned's adventures in India: https://shows.acast.com/never-strays-far/episodes/never-strays-raj-a-cycling-passage-to-india

Laura's Substack post on the Newham mayoral elections: https://substack.com/home/post/p-185413267

And the news last month that Tower Hamlets mayor, Lutfur Rahman's bid to remove Low Traffic Neighbourhoods would be unlawful https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce3kkven14no

That clip of Zohran Mamdani fixing a bike lane on the Williamsburg Bridge: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/7F8ZVOfjS2o

One Telegraph columnist's recent take on 15-minutes cities as a 'Stalinist plot': https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/f337a3f300adace0

And finally, if you want to ask Ned, Adam and Laura questions for a forthcoming episode, find us on social media or email us on [email protected].

For ad-free listening, behind-the-scenes and bonus content and to help support the podcast - head to (https://www.patreon.com/StreetsAheadPodcast). We’ll even send you some stickers!

We’re also on Bluesky and welcome your feedback on our episode: https://bsky.app/profile/podstreetsahead.bsky.social

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.