NewcastleGateshead Got In Gear To Welcome The ACT TravelWise Conference
Hundreds of sustainable transport professionals arrived at The Sage Gateshead in the North East of England for a two day event to share ideas on how people can get healthy and save cash by choosing environmentally friendly transport.
NewcastleGateshead hosted the event organised by the ACT TravelWise Association, the UK’s leading network for all organisations working to promote sustainable travel. It promotes the benefits of travel planning and develops and markets a wide range of initiatives to provide the public with travel choices.
The event was held at The Sage Gateshead and attracted people from a range of organisations including schools, local authorities and private companies, all keen to find out how they can encourage people to consider healthy travel options.
Neil Scales, Chair of ACT TravelWise, said: “More and more people are choosing to adopt sustainable forms of transport, seeing the benefits that green forms of travel have on both personal finance and health. Employers also recognise the connection between sustainable travel choices, health and productivity and we are working successfully with members to encourage behavioural change through travel planning.”
The conference, which attracted over 250 visitors to NewcastleGateshead was organised in the region by the ACT TravelWise North East Regional group whose main sponsor was the Tyne and Wear Local Transport Plan. Delegates boarded buses to visit a range of local locations, including North Tyneside’s Cobalt Business Park, Quorum Business Park, Gateshead College and Gateshead International Stadium, to see examples of regional travel planning success.
Mark Ashall, of Highbridge, developers of Cobalt Park said: “Cobalt is the UK’s largest business park and we place great emphasis on working in partnership with transport operators and other stakeholders to enhance the sustainable travel options available to the almost 10,000 employees based onsite – we enjoyed having the ACT TravelWise delegates and sharing ideas and experiences of travel planning.”
Mr Ashall was among the speakers taking part in a panel debate at the conference along with Wayne Hemingway who was behind the Staiths South Bank project in Gateshead, Dr Gary MacDonald, transport policy manager at Newcastle City Council, James Ramsbotham, chief executive of the North East Chamber of Commerce, Dr Karen Lucas, research fellow at Oxford University and Scarlett Mulligan from the UK Youth Parliament.
The conference also played host to the ACT TravelWise Awards: the most prestigious awards in sustainable transport.
December 13, 2009
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