Personality of the Month - Gina Dowding, Lancaster City Council
What is your job or other main activity that involves cycling?
I am currently an elected City Councillor and as part of my role on the council’s cabinet I am on the board of Lancaster district’s Cycling Demonstration Town initiative.
How long have you done that?
I was elected in 1999, and have always tried to promote cycling as part of my role as a Green Party councillor. This role formally became part of my job after Lancaster was successful in achieving Cycling Demonstration Town status in October 2005.
Where do you live?
I live just on the edge of the City Centre in Lancaster.
What most encourages you about cycling where you live?
Lancaster and the area around it is a great place for all sorts of cycling, even commuter cycling. The cycling network is well developed and can take you along the canal towpath, along the river estuary, and along miles of the disused railway line from Morecambe to Lancaster.
What most discourages you about cycling where you live?
The town centres themselves have not been adapted (as yet) for the needs of cyclists and we still have one way streets through the city centre with no contra flow for cyclists and a pedestrian-only zone that forbids cycling. But I’m optimistic that as the Cycling Demonstration Town progresses Lancaster will adopt better practices from elsewhere.
How would you describe yourself as a cyclist?
I’m a committed and regular cyclist. I just love the ease and speed that cycling offers as a form of transport.
What is you earliest cycling memory?
I used to cycle alongside my mum across Tooting Bec Common in south London going to nursery school.
Where is the best place you have ever cycled?
Cycling from Malaga to Granada in Southern Spain.
What is your greatest achievement, in terms of encouraging more people to cycle?
Being involved in putting together Lancaster’s successful bid to get Cycling Demonstration Town status, as that has meant we have been able to promote cycling in the area - for example by focusing training and consultancy on some key schools is really showing results, and by getting on with developing the cycling infrastructure in this district in a way that wouldn’t have been possible before.
What single thing do you think would do most to encourage more cycling in the UK?
I think a general ‘civilising’ and slowing down of four wheeled traffic, especially through the widespread introduction of 20mph areas in towns and cities, would really encourage more cycling as this would help overcome the perception that cycling is less safe than other forms of transport.
What has been your favourite cycling experience?
A cycling touring holiday in the Pula peninsula in what was then northern Yugoslavia.
What was your worst cycling experience?
If I had one I have forgotten it! Other than the time my back tyre split on holiday in the mountains in Spain. I had to tie the inner tube inside the tyre by closely wrapping string around the tyre and the wheel ( a technique I had just read about) - but that meant having to widen the brake blocks and render them useless. It was one of those - ‘wasn’t it exciting now that I can talk about it in hindsight’ sort of terrible experiences!
What is it about using your bike that you like the most?
It’s such a sociable and civilised form of transport - in every possible way.
The answers given are the opinion of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of any organisation they may represent.
