British Cycling’s policy adviser Chris Boardman was named ‘Cycling Champion of the Year’ at last night’s London Cycling Awards 2014, hosted by the London Cycle Campaign.
The result of the public vote saw Chris Boardman top the polls against Andrew Gilligan, the mayor of London’s cycling commissioner, Dr Rachel Aldred, a senior lecturer in transport at the University of Westminster, and British Cycling’s double Olympic medallist, Laura Trott.
On winning the award, Chris Boardman said:
“I’m really honoured to have won this award and I want to thank everyone who voted. Designing cycling back into our towns and cities is an issue I feel really passionate about as it makes logical sense to embrace the bicycle as an everyday transport solution.
“London is leading the way in many areas of everyday cycling and that is largely in thanks to the London Cycle Campaign. Our country’s capital has strong leadership in mayor Boris Johnson, it has continuous funding of £1 billion over 10 years and it is introducing measures to tackle dangerous vehicles. We now need national government to follow this lead to ensure that the whole country benefits from what cycling can do to improve our communities and public spaces.”
Boardman’s key achievements on championing cycling in the last year include the launch of British Cycling’s manifesto, Time to Choose Cycling, a visualisation of how his home town of West Kirby could look if cycling were accommodated and a new vision for Leeds’ The Headrow, the start line of this year’s Tour de France. British Cycling’s 94,000-strong membership state that supporting its work on campaigning for better condition for cyclists is the one of their top reasons for joining the organisation.
The annual London Cycling Awards recognise the best cycling brands, retailers and bloggers and celebrates pioneering people, organisations, technology and infrastructure that champion the bicycle and the benefits it can bring to society, the environment and the nation’s health.
The 2014 edition was hosted by Jeremy Vine at St Martin in the Fields, Trafalgar Square.
The London Cycle Campaign is Britain’s largest city campaign group for cycling with over 12,000 members. It is well known for its ‘Love London, Go Dutch’ campaign which secured commitments from Boris Johnson to implement meaningful and consistent funding for cycle infrastructure before his election as Mayor of London. This was followed by ‘Space for Cycling’ which secured locally focussed commitments to improve roads for cycling from over 40% of elected councillors in the 2014 local elections.