Winners of London Cycling Awards 2011 announced

London Cycling Campaign last night revealed the winners of its annual London Cycling awards, including Danny Williams, one of the bloggers behind last weekend’s Tour du Danger. Transport for London (TfL) was recognised for a positive initiative for the capital’s cyclists, while another winner was a piece of cycling infrastructure that passes underneath Bow roundabout, the cause of so much controversy in recent weeks following the death of two riders there.

While TfL has come under fire for the design of the Bow roundabout including the fact that the eastern end of the Barclays Cycle Superhighway there puts cyclists in a position of danger, it did win the award for the Best Cycling Workplace Initiative.

That was awarded for its Barclays Cycle Superhighways Workplace Scheme, under which local businesses along the route of the Superhighways can apply for funding for initiatives such as cycle parking, training and check-ups. Another TfL initiative, the Freight Operators’ Recognition Scheme (FORS), was also shortlisted, as was the Heathrow Cycle Hub.

Williams, who blogs at Cyclists In The City, was named Local Campaigner of the Year for his campaigning efforts in connection with Blackfriars Bridge, as well as in the City of London generally.

Nominations closed before the series of tragic events that gave rise to the Tour du Danger around London’s ten most dangerous junctions, which attracted attention from both the cycling and wider press last weekend. Also nominated in the category were Geraldine Matthews of Tower Hamlet Wheelers and Charlie Holland of Lambeth cyclists.

The Best Cycling Facility category was one of two that resulted in a joint award being given. One of the winners was the floating towpath beneath the Bow Flyover in East London, a joint initiative of British Waterways, London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, Walk London, TfL, the Olympic Delivery Authority, and Design for London. 


A great example of how good cycling infrastructure can be when designers and planners get it right, the tragic irony is that it safely takes those cyclists travelling North to South under the Bow interchange, but it’s on the East-West axis that two cyclists have lost their lives in the past month.

Sharing the award was a joint initiative between the London Borough of Lambeth and Cyclehoop, for an innovative bike parking facility the design of which highlights that the space taken by ten bicycles when parked is equivalent to that occupied by one car. The council also made the shortlist for another project in Lambeth, for on-street cycle parking in Vauxhall.

The other category with a shared award was the Best London Cycling Event. One of the joint prizewinners there was an initiative drawn up by art and cycling enthusiast Vanessa Celosse, working alongside Wandsworth Cycling Campaign, Battersea Artists and Wandsworth Council. That project, the Battersea Artists’ Trail Bike Tour, saw groups of cyclists’ taken on a tour of 17 artists’ homes or galleries.

The other winner in that category was Havering Council for its Havering Bikewise event, which attracted an estimated 4,000 people, while Hackney Council received a nomination for its Bike Across The Borough event.

Hackney did, however, walk away with the award for Best Project for Children or Young People, which it scooped for its year-long Bikers’ Breakfasts campaign in local schools, building on an initiative that had first been tested during Bike Week 2010.

The other nominees were Havering Council and Cycle Training East for their Cycle Awareness Day, and Isleworth Town School for its Travel Sustainability project.

The charity Wheels for Wellbeing, which operates programmes to help disabled people enjoy cycling at Brockwell Park and Croydon Arena, won the Community Cycling Project category as a result of its latest initiatives.

Also making the shortlist in that category were Sanford Housing Cooperative for its Sanford Community Cycling project, and LCC itself, as well as partner organisations, for the Agewell on Wheels programme.

The awards, sponsored by cycle-friendly solicitors Levenes and Butterworth Spengler, provider of Urban Cycling Insurance offered to LCC members, coincided with LCC’s AGM at which it formally adopted its new ‘Go Dutch’ campaign which “calls for clear space, Dutch-style, for cycling along major roads in every London borough.”