Good day my good friend.

Don’t let it be said that being a town councillor is without its responsibilities. This week, in addition to helping out with a litter pick, I have managed to chair a meeting of my Town Council’s planning group, and respond by way of a strongly-worded letter to the local transport authority about parking issues. And anyone who is British will know that a strongly-worded letter is the equivalent of declaring war. Still, I enjoy it. Mostly.

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👭 Women in Transport doing good stuff that is worth celebrating

Warning: I did have a small hand in this work, and so in some ways its slightly self-promotional, but I would not include it here if it wasn’t a positive thing.

The always-excellent Women in Transport have published a report called the Women in Transport Equity Index, which you must read. It seeks to provide a benchmark to see how companies are performing across the transport sector with regards to a number of matters that are of importance to women. Including, but not limited to, percentage of the workforce and senior managers who are women, attitudes towards flexible working, the gender pay gap, and targets and quotas.

I’m not going to lie. The results are not pretty. But the reason that this is positive is because for the first time there is actual data against which progress can be measured. So this will be positive in time as opposed to right now. Plus there are also some really good companies doing great things, which are mentioned in the report.

A big shout out to Sue Terpilowski who ran the hard yards on this report. Give her some love! 👍

😃 Good things going on

A railway station in Reading (nope, not that station you are thinking of) has undergone a revamp, and its now looking very nice indeed. With an added bus interchange and pedestrian crossing.

A brand new park in Stockport has opened close to the railway viaduct. The always-excellent Pauline Johnstone has posted a video of the first kids to play there and it will make you feel happier with the world so go and watch it.

Proving that Oxfordshire isn’t just all about Oxford, the County Council has launched some new bus services serving a variety of extremely English-sounding village names. And Banbury. And Bicester. And Oxford of course.

Stratford-Upon-Avon, meanwhile, is boosting its Park and Ride service to run on a Sunday. I’m sure that Shakespeare would write a play about it if he could.

People tend to like walking and cycling routes. As shown by the Willenhall Greenway in Walsall.

Occasionally, local politicians bite back against easy criticism of cycle tracks. In this case, Marina Asvachin of the Labour Party did so to defend a cycle track in Exeter.

Motor City is building cycle tracks. Coventry City Council announced £7.2 million being invested in new infrastructure in the next year.

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