Save Hove Cycle Lane: a father shares his daughter’s anger and broken dreams

Cyclists gather before joining the protest

A father shares his daughter’s anger and broken dreams as an “Anti-Cycling” minority Tory administration threatens to destroy another key element of his plan for a “Cycling City”

20 Feb 2011. Russell Honeyman interviewed the man who laid the plans for Brighton and Hove’s award winning Cycling Demonstration Town scheme – and is watching them being destroyed by a minority Tory controlled council.

Stuart Croucher is a quietly spoken professional who seemed cheerful enough in his cycling helmet and high visibility waterproofs. Only toward the end of our interview did he reveal his anger about the impact that plans to close Hove’s cycle freeway (a European-style segregated cycle lane) might have on his family life. He talked about his experiences with his seven-year-old daughter, Josie. He said: “When we told her the cycle lane was to be closed she was really upset that she won’t be able to cycle to the seaside anymore.”

I met Mr Croucher at Saturday’s (19 February 2011) protest against plans to scrap the cycle freeway along The Drive in Hove. He was Transport Planning Manager for Brighton and Hove in 2005 when the city won grant funding from Cycling England as a Cycling Demonstration Town. Cycle freeways were a central element of the scheme. Last year the city won the Transport Authority of the Year award with commendation for improvements to cycle infrastructure in the city.

But a Tory administration gained control of the city in 2007 and has cancelled key parts of the scheme and now plans the latest closure.

Mr Croucher now works as an Urban Designer for Crossrail, designing spaces around London’s new rail link.

I asked how he felt about the destruction of his plans for transforming Brighton and Hove into a cycling city. “I don’t see them as my plans, they were drawn up by a team,” Mr Croucher said. “I understand the arguments in a professional way.”

He hesitated a moment. “But as a citizen of Brighton and Hove I feel deeply angry. It feels as if progress, not just in transport, but also in many other ways, is coming to a halt. Now it’s going into reverse. Seeing the council planning to spend £1.1 million on destroying this cycle freeway when they are cutting essential services across the city makes me really cross.” (more...)

Folks who choose natural immunity - Magda Taylor

24 March 2010
 An interview with a mother who decided not to vaccinate her children.

One in four children aren’t fully vaccinated against measles in Brighton and Hove. Last year, the NHS issued warnings of an epidemic. Russell Honeyman asked mother-of-two Magda Taylor why people choose not to vaccinate.

According to Department of Health figures, in December 2009, only 76% of Brighton and Hove’s five-year-olds had received the recommended double dose of MMR vaccine. The national average is 82%. This was after the 2008 ‘catch-up’ campaign to get parents to vaccinate their children. Before that only 65% of the city’s five-year-olds had received the double dose of MMR. The NHS warned of a possible measles epidemic. Last year that seemed to be coming true when 69 people were diagnosed with measles. 56 of them were had no record of vaccination, five had one dose of MMR, one had both doses, and the vaccination status of the others was not known. The outbreak didn’t turn into an epidemic. The total of confirmed cases was 69, though the Brighton and Hove PCT estimated that more cases would not have been reported.

Despite the NHS warnings, mother-of-two Magda Taylor questions whether vaccination is an effective way of preventing disease. Magda, 50, lives in Worthing and edits a magazine and website called Informed Parent, which collates information and press reports about vaccination. She has been interested in alternative choices to vaccination since she read a 1991 article, by Andrew Tyler, in the Evening Standard.

Magda grew up on the outskirts of Harrow, in a house that didn’t have medicines in it. “We didn’t even have aspirin,” Magda said. “This was not the result of a belief in a holistic life. My family dealt with illness in a commonsense way.

“With my own children, Ruby and Nancy, I didn’t have any knowledge; I just wanted to be a good mum. I went along with what the doctor told me to do at first, and so my first child had some vaccinations including the first dose of MMR. Then I read the Standard article in 1991 and my second child didn’t get any MMR jabs.

“I don’t think either of them suffered long term complications from the vaccinations they did have, but when I look back on their growth charts, I can see that one stopped thriving after each vaccination. I don’t know if that was related. The other one developed eczema after the early vaccination, although there is no history of eczema in my family.
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