Travel plan for cyclists at school in Bedford wins award

St Thomas More School has been accredited with a bronze level award for its School Travel Plan – one of only two schools in the borough to achieve this - from Modeshift STARS.

Modeshift STARS is a school travel planning portal recognising best practice in sustainable school travel through the delivery of travel plans.

A spokeswoman for the school said: “The Modeshift STARS accreditation was achieved as part of our school’s development and implementation of our School Travel Plan which is led by Mrs Grimley. This is fantastic news and a great achievement!

“We are indebted to Peter Blakeman for his support in this venture over the years and with his help, the school have notched up 92 cyclists.

“Also, special thanks to our own Mr Newman, himself a keen cyclist, who has taken the lead on this excellent initiative. It is our vision to achieve 100 cyclists.”

Student cyclist of all ages from St Thomas More attended a meeting to look at a cyclist code of conduct and a cycling policy for the school.

The purpose of the meeting was to build up the cycling capacity of the school by listening to the concerns of their cyclists and to ensure that they are encouraged to be considerate cyclists within the community.

The spokeswoman added: “Supporting this initiative was ‘SUSTRANS’ from Bedford Borough who shared their plans to build on ways they hope to encourage cycling through use of the ‘Smoothie Bike’.

“This will be a feature for planned events going forward and we are looking forward to being a part of this.”