Case study - Birchwood climate change

Situation

The North West Climate Fund (Foundation) is a new, innovative and powerful carbon reduction fund for the region which will help identify, launch and fund a range of projects across Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside, that together will have a substantial impact on local communities as well as on our region’s carbon emissions.

Having secured regional start-up resources from the Northwest Development Agency, the Fund launched in Spring 2009 and is being incubated by Groundwork Northwest.

Birchwood Park is a 123 acre mixed use business park in the heart of Birchwood, Warrington. It has already developed a comprehensive Travel Management Plan and appointed a Travel Coordinator to take the plan forward.

In 2007 a travel survey identified that a significant number of the Birchwood Business Park employees lived within a 3 mile radius, yet most travelled to work in single occupancy car journeys.

Our solution

Birchwood’s travel plans identified cycling as important to the reduction of CO2 emissions in the area. In partnership with BikeRight! and Foundation a project was agreed to encourage employees to change their travel habits and use cycling as a means of getting to and from work. The project ran from March through July 2009.

The project aims were to:

• Encourage non-cyclist staff commuting to work in Birchwood Business Park to change their travel mode and to make more journeys by cycle and integrate cycle use with public transport options

• Provide National Standard cycle training, bicycle maintenance courses and a commuter challenge to circa 60 employees to encourage a higher level of active travel (cycling)

• Monitor the level of cycle use and provide analysis of modal change, kilometres cycled, cost savings and CO2 reductions achieved

• Provide a case study and template for other business parks

• Encourage the creation of a business based within Birchwood Business Park which would provide cycling support

Benefits

• 25 non-cyclists were monitored and successfully completed the cycling and maintenance training courses

• Decrease of 276 single occupancy car journeys

• 924 extra cycle journeys

• 1500 kilometres cycled

• Projected annual saving of 1.14 tonnes of CO2

Related projects

• Sellafield Limited staff training

Fact file

Client:

Birchwood Park and the North West Regional Development Agency

Date:

March to July 2009

Location:

Birchwood Park, Warrington

Frequency:

On-going

Number of people:

62

 

"It was excellent! I haven’t ridden a bike for over 30 years, so was terrified of starting to ride one. By the end of it I’d stopped wobbling all over the place and now feel that I’m OK to ride on public roads."

"Amazingly got in on bike every day! And I’m in on the bike today in the rain. Thank you again for the course."

 

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