A New Year message from Emily Cherry, the Bikeability Trust’s Executive Director
On behalf of everyone at the Bikeability Trust, we wish you a hopeful 2021.
Hope is the word I am using because we are right now in another difficult period with the lockdown and ongoing uncertainty for Bikeability. But hope exists because the commitment and support for Bikeability is not wavering. In 2021 we will deliver the positive steps to a Bikeability for All programme that we have spent much of our time talking with you about.
However, that doesn’t make it any easier when you are facing difficult decisions about how to manage and survive this period.
We are with you. The Bikeability Trust team is working hard responding to the changes, listening to what you need and aiming to communicate and support as much as possible. I’ve had many calls and emails from instructors, providers and grant recipients. Some of you have been angry, some of you have been thankful. The decisions that we have been taking about cancelled training have been based on balancing the important priorities of trying to ensure children do not miss out and supporting our industry. In all of that, what shines through is how you are best placed to take local decisions that work for you. Some of you have passionately argued we should cancel all training. Others have pleaded with us to push hard to ensure guidance can permit training of adults or children. We must carefully weigh up what is permitted under the guidance, and what is the right thing to do to protect our industry and help children achieve a sense of normality.
We are championing your concerns and issues and it’s why we live in hope. We are confident that the increases to come when COVID permits, and the changes we can make together will make our Bikeability system stronger for the future. We won’t stop working until we have secured the support for a true Bikeability for All programme.
So, I am asking for your patience and faith that hope truly is on the horizon and we will see Bikeability for All start to take shape over the coming months. Please stay with us and remember that we have secured the ability to pay for cancelled courses from the grant programme because we want to support instructors and training providers to come through these difficult moments as the scale up will start in 2021. We’ll deliver more Bikeability than ever this year and every single one of you matters.
Thank you for everything you do, you are valued and appreciated.