Thursday 12th September 2013 is national cycle to work day. The national cycle to work day is being promoted by CycleScheme, who are the largest provider of tax free bikes as part of the governments Green Transport Plan, which allows employee’s to save about 32% off a new bike which they “hire” from there employers. Two of Ely’s largest employers Tesco and Sainsburys offer the CycleScheme to their employee’s.
With the rising cost of fuel, the ever increasing burden of obesity and the fact that nearly 25% of current car journeys are less than a mile it’s no wonder that cycling is increasing fast with nearly 760,000 people regularly cycling to work. National Cycle to Work day hopes to increase that number and hope that the challenge of commuting by bike for one day will inspire more to make it a regular event.
Multi-gold winning Paralympic Dame Sarah Storey is championing this event and Ely Cycling Campaign hope that there will an increase in people using two wheels to travel to work and will be contacting some of the major employers in Ely to see if they are promoting the scheme. We also hope that the members of the Personnel & Corporate Services committee meeting at East Cambridgeshire District Council on Thursday 12th September will also back this national event and cycle to work.
Sainsbury’s are backing the event but as yet we have no details about the activity from the Ely Branch. Tesco as a company support National Cycle to Work but the Ely store is not doing anything to promote the day and we have yet to hear back from Waitrose.
Only two members of the Personnel & Corporate Services Committee have replied and Cllr Brown is not attending and Cllr Austen, while a supporter of cycling, her health doesn’t enable her to cycle.
So make sure on Thursday 12th September you “Get on your Bike”
To find our more about National Cycle to Work Day visit https://www.cycletoworkday.org/
To find out more about CycleScheme visit http://www.cyclescheme.co.uk/ or ask your personnel department.
Ely Cycling Campaign 
Councillor Jeremy Friend-Smith will be attending the meeting on his bike as he does when he can.
After persisting on Twitter I finally got this response from Sainsburys
Apologies for the delayed response to your letter regarding National cycle to work day.
Sainsbury’s Ely are keen to support this event and we have been actively encouraging colleagues to cycle to work on Thursday. We have posters located in our colleague areas, and have been using our colleague/ management huddles to communicate the event to department managers. Sainsbury’s provides staff with the opportunity to sign up to the cycle to work scheme, as one of their many ways of encouraging colleagues to cycle to work. Many colleagues already cycle throughout the week but we are hoping that by supporting cycle to work day, they will be inclined to bike to work not only on Thursday, but on a more permanent basis.
We are also keen to support this event in the future and use it to encourage customers to cycle as well. Next year I will look into ways we can raise awareness of the event such as having colleagues cycling on exercise bikes in store throughout the day. Sainsbury’s encourage active lifestyles and focus much of their corporate events around this, i.e Active Kids scheme. Unfortunately we are unable to carry out an event of this nature this year due to National Cycle to work day clashing with other events, (In store collections and the re-launch of Tu Clothing also on Thursday).
I hope that this event will be a success and would be happy to let you know how promoting this event, has impacted on the number of colleagues cycling to work, both on Thursday and in the long run. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Luke Edwards
PR and Charity Ambassador
Waitrose have also displayed posters and placed copies of Cycle Schemes “Cycle Commuter” magazine in staff areas.
It is only Tesco and 70% of councilors (that I contacted) that have not responded.