Bonded Mulch Specification

-Several play area surfaces are constructed with bonded rubber bark, that is a product made by using recycled tyres. The truck tyres are crumbled to produce rubber chippings, very similar to the overall look of solid wood bark chippings. They are then mixed with a specialist glue and applied onto the preferred surface in the required design and style. Children’s play spaces along with other exterior places could have this kind of surfacing laid for numerous benefits.

Just like wet pour, the bound rubberized mulch may be set up in numerous depths. The chosen level is based on the Critical Fall Height conditions for any apparatus on the play area. This is done with British test conditions to create the highest level of protection for kids. Recreational rubber bark is incredibly common close to obstacle courses and climbing frames in the United Kingdom. It generates a natural design which fits in with rustic themed places, combined with making the surfacing impact absorbing.

This style of rubberized surfacing is applied onto most existing materials, such as tarmac and grassy surfaces. http://bondedmulchspecification.blogspot.com/ It is good for surfaces which may have muddy patches that come to be hazardous in rainy weather conditions. The flexibility of this system means it can be very easily put on to facilities which have equipment already fitted. We will not really need to set down any groundwork so we are prepared to provide good prices to suit your project. We’ll be prepared to provide you with an inexpensive quote to undertake this type of job.

The premium rubber bark playground design is available in a whole host of different colour options. The most common colours are green and brown simply because they are usually developed for woodland places. https://bondedmulchspecification.wordpress.com/ In case you prefer a much more mixed look, the colour choices can be combined to give a more distinct look. You can easily generate a bespoke specification which can be totally tailored for your budget.

If you have pre-existing apparatus and furniture within the outdoor area, our surfacing can be structured to install beneath these products. You could have equipment like climbing structures; roundabouts, furniture and monkey bars, and we can accommodate all these. Due to spaces between the rubberized fragments, http://bondedmulchspecification.tumblr.com/ the floor is permeable. Because of this porosity, rain water will be able to go through the surface which helps prevent it accumulating and producing floods. This allows the surface to have minimum routine maintenance through the year, and it could be used continually. If you are searching for an alternative to solid wood chippings, this is an amazing choice because it is suited to all weather circumstances. You don't have any mulch getting misplaced from the area as it's all glued down firmly.

Rubber mulch is wonderful for flexible and durable pathways which take lots of pedestrian traffic. Quite a few outdoor spaces such as golf courses also get this particular flooring type laid so that users can move around the area easily. Routine brushing should be enough to help keep the floor free of debris and rubbish. http://bondedmulchspecification.weebly.com/ This can stop dirt from getting trapped in the pores and producing contamination and water damage. We recommend making the surfacing as clean as you can to be sure it’s safe at all times.

Sustrans continues winning with “New Streets Design Award” in London

2 July 2019

We were delighted to receive a “New Streets Design Award” from Local Government News editor, Laura Sharman, for redesigning part of New Park Road in the London Borough of Lambeth.

Our winning design means residents, parents and school children now breathe cleaner air and feel more confident crossing the road, the whole community benefits from the significant reduction in HGVs using New Park Road, and the risk of collision has been significantly reduced.

Safety concerns and listening to the community

New Park Road in Lambeth was in an area where the risk of accidents resulting in injury was 40% greater than on similar roads in the borough. Following concerns from parents, children and staff about traffic volume, the area’s relatively high road collision rate and poor air quality, Lambeth Council commissioned us to work with the local community to come up with a proposal that would transform the character of New Park Road, putting people rather than motor vehicles at its heart. Designs for the area also needed to align with Lambeth’s vision to reduce traffic speeds across the borough to 20mph.

Overcoming challenges

A major challenge for was how to transform a nine-metre wide road serving fast moving cars and lorries, into a place where people could safely walk or travel by bike. Eighty percent of the children arrive at the local school on foot, by bike or public transport, so most of the traffic creating the air pollution and an unsafe environment for the children was created by through-traffic rather than local traffic.

Working with the schools, businesses and residents, we helped transform a dangerous, polluted, car-dominated road, into a place which meets the needs of the local community. Trees were planted to help improve drainage and air quality. Pavements were widened, making for a more pleasant and sociable place.

The narrower road space, created through a series of circular build outs, provides a number of shorter crossing points, where previously no clear crossings existed. Colourful circles on the road are more numerous around crossing points to suggest safe locations to cross. The circles use the school’s colours to give the impression that the school is spilling out into the street. The no priority give way build outs encourage slow driver behaviour, which consequently discourages people from using New Park Road as a through route.

Getting positive results

The well-designed infrastructure and landscaping has resulted in children and local residents feeling more comfortable crossing the road, which benefits local businesses. As a result of the intervention there is now :

• 94% compliance with 20mph speed restriction
• 27% reduction in the average motor traffic speeds         
• 14% reduction in motor traffic volume.
• 30% drop in the number of HGVs using the road - with resulting better air quality, which is good news for residents in the area including the children at Richard Atkins Primary School.

Collaborative design to meet community needs

Our work focused on creating a design based on the communities’ priorities. We worked through many possibilities, including eliminating all through-traffic, with businesses, the school and residents as well as councillors and council officers, as part of our collaborative design process. The result was a design that met the community’s needs, dramatically slowing traffic making the road safer for pedestrians and people on bikes. The proposed design was tested through a day-long street trial, which proved a success with notable benefits including reduced speeds and more people on the street.

Giving the community ownership

Through our extensive engagement process, we collected views from local residents and schoolchildren who highlighted many safety issues, including a lack of safe places to cross the street, high traffic volume and speeds, and collisions. Residents have taken ownership of the street and have added more improvements such as planters. The community is also making plans for additional traffic calming measures on neighbouring streets as the desire to create Liveable Neighbourhoods grows in London.

Sustrans’ London Director, Matt Winfield, said:

“We’re delighted to have helped Lambeth Council make it safer and easier for people to walk and cycle in New Park Road and to see the difference it’s made to how school children travel.

“It is shocking that every school in London is in a location which is breaching World Health Organisation air quality limits. Urgent action is needed. We want national government to support local authorities to make it safer and easier for parents and children to walk, scoot and cycle to school. To do that, the roads outside schools need to feel safe.

Councils and campaigners that want to make streets outside school gates car-free can talk to us about delivering a community-led solution for everyone.”

“ “Winning this award means a great deal to us because it recognises the work we are passionate about – creating a healthy, happy city with people at the centre of street design.” ”

-  Senior Urban Designer, Feras Fathallah

Local resident Ray said “You’ve nailed it. It’s doing what it’s supposed to do - slowing the traffic for the kids. ”

Award winning form

This win comes hot on the heels of our success at the London Transport Awards earlier this year where our winning work featured in two categories covering three boroughs. Brent came top in the Excellence in Cycling and Walking category and Greenwich won highly commended for completing the missing link on the Thames Path. Our work with Greenwich, helping a business cut its carbon emissions by using a cargo bike for deliveries, was also awarded highly commended in the Contribution to Sustainable Transport category.

Read more about our work in London

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Walking and Cycling portrayed negatively in over 60% of media articles – new research reveals

25 June 2019

New research by Sustrans Scotland has revealed that despite well-documented health and environmental benefits, active travel continues to be portrayed in the media as risky and unsafe.  

The research, funded by Transport Scotland and conducted by Sustrans Research and Monitoring Unit (RMU) analysed 600 articles over a 12-month period from online news outlets papers across the UK and Scotland to explore how walking and cycling is represented, and how people who walk and cycle are portrayed to the general public.  

The research is to be presented in full at this week’s international cycling conference, Velo-City 2019, which takes place in Dublin, Republic of Ireland. 

Researchers analysed articles from four perspectives: “thematic”, looking at the broad news angle; “sentiment”, understanding whether the news article or feature is broadly positive or negative; “discourse, which looks in more detail about how walking and cycling are represented.   The team also did a visual analysis, examining what types of images were used of people walking and cycling. 

It is the first media analysis of this type to look at portrayals of active travel in the Scottish media. 

Key findings include:

News articles seem to zone in on ‘Criminal Acts’ – where a crime is committed by or against a cyclist or person walking, or a person walking or cycling witnesses a crime, or ‘safety’ – reporting an incident or event which results in injury or harm. 

The majority of articles (61%) about walking and cycling are broadly negative.  There are some regional variations, however.  UK National papers have a greater percentage of positive articles about walking, whereas both the Scottish National and regional papers have a much higher percentage of articles that are positive towards cycling.

There were positive themes too. ‘Infrastructure’ is a theme featured in 64% of positive articles about active travel and ‘Health’ is featured in over 93% of articles providing a positive view of active travel.

‘Infrastructure’ articles coded as ‘negative’ were not necessarily anti-walking or cycling, instead discussing poor infrastructure that need to be improved to make these areas safer, again highlighting the perceived ‘dangers’ of active travel.

Health articles were mainly focussed on walking, and found in UK National media. There may be an opportunity to further promote health benefits of cycling in Scottish media.

One of the key findings was in the visual analysis.  Images of active travel in general, and cycling in particular, were predominantly of white males. 

Of those portrayed actively walking or cycling, 50% of images contained only men, while 27% showed only women. This gap widens when looking exclusively at cycling images (63% male and 18% female). Active travel articles significantly over-represent images of white individuals (96%) in comparison to BAME individuals (4%), highlighting the lack of diversity. 

According to the research, images can often make people walking and cycling look vulnerable, or less than human “through the use of isolated or car-dominated locations, a ‘voyeuristic’ camera angle, and content such as showing only someone’s feet, which makes it difficult for readers to connect and relate to the individual pictured.”

“  We in the sector also need to make sure we don’t inadvertently reinforce stereotypes, or add to a climate of fear rather than celebration. ”

- John Lauder, Sustrans UK Deputy CEO, and National Director, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland  

Will Wright, lead researcher, will present the findings in full at Velo-City 2019, in Dublin, an international conference organised by the European Cycling Federation (ECF) with over 1,200 delegates from 45 countries worldwide. 

Commenting on the findings, Sustrans UK Deputy CEO, and National Director, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland, John Lauder said: “It was encouraging to see that the Scottish media is reporting health messages on cycling and that the UK media recognise the benefits of walking.

“But there is still work to be done on ensuring both cycling and walking are not stereotyped and associated imagery is much more widely representative. We in the sector also need to make sure we don’t inadvertently reinforce stereotypes, or add to a climate of fear rather than celebration”.

Sustrans Research and Monitoring Unit Deputy Director, Nathan Farrell said: “This is one of the most comprehensive overviews of the media portrayal of active travel in Scotland. It explores some of the key challenges that emerge when reporting on cycling. In particular, it highlights how the media’s preference for the types of dramatic and sensationalist stories that appeal to audiences often underplays the more widespread health and environmental benefits of cycling.

“Ultimately, the research points towards the need for a more engaged dialogue between active travel advocates and media practitioners in order to more accurately represent the benefits of cycling”.  

Find out more about our work in Scotland Read the full report

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Despite growing awareness of climate change, UK families still pushed to use petrol vehicles on days out

24 June 2019

More than eight out of ten parents (83%) think an individual’s choice of transport plays an important role in leading a sustainable lifestyle. Despite this, petrol and diesel vehicles remain the main mode of travel for a day out for over half (56%) of UK families.

A YouGov poll, carried out for Sustrans, the walking and cycling charity, surveyed 1,089 parents across the UK with children aged 18 and under about their views on sustainability and environmental problems.

Over four-fifths (83%) of those surveyed said their awareness of environmental problems has increased in the last year. When asked what changes they have made to their lifestyle as a result of this, over three in five (61%) have reduced plastic usage, followed by recycling more (57%) and walking for shorter journeys (38%), whilst 9% started cycling for shorter journeys.

The survey also revealed:

Walking tops the mode of transportation that is considered sustainable (81%), followed by cycling (72%) and train (35%). 70% say sustainable travel is not a key factor for determining the destination for a day out. Almost one third (29%) stated a lack of public transport as a key barrier to travelling more sustainably, followed by the inconvenience of planning a journey around being environmentally friendly (27%) and limited budget (26%). Almost half (47%) attributed their increased awareness of environmental problems to televised programmes and a further 42% credited this to newspapers and magazines. 92% of parents think it is important to teach their children about the impact their lifestyle can have on the environment.

Earlier in the year, the average concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere hit its highest level in 800,000 years of which transport contributes heavily. New research by the University of Oxford demonstrates that walking or cycling can realistically substitute 41% of short car trips, saving nearly 5% of CO2 emissions from car travel.

MPs also passed a motion making the UK Parliament declare an “environment and climate emergency” following protests organised by pupils across the UK and worldwide demanding urgent action on climate change.

Xavier Brice, Sustrans’ CEO, said: “Environmental problems have dominated media coverage in the last year so it’s great public awareness is increasing. Sadly, transport is the only sector where carbon emissions continue to rise.

“If we are to help everyone travel more sustainably and reduce harmful emissions, we need to make it easier for more people to replace trips that they currently make by car with walking and cycling. Travelling by bike or foot should be as easy as recycling. As the survey shows, people want to travel more sustainably but now they need the right infrastructure to act.

“  Environmental problems have dominated media coverage in the last year so it’s great public awareness is increasing. Sadly, transport is the only sector where carbon emissions continue to rise. ”

- Xavier Brice, Sustrans’ CEO.

“Central Governments recognise the benefits of the National Cycle Network, which makes it possible for 4.4 million people to travel under their own power every year, for both work and leisure. We need to build on the success of the Network and make walking and cycling realistic for more families.

“Dense, high quality networks of walking and cycling paths that connect people to everyday destinations and offer an easy escape to the countryside require cross-government action and large-scale investment.”

The survey has been released to launch Sustrans’ Everyday Adventures campaign to promote the National Cycle Network. Its 16,000-miles span the UK and nearly a third of the Network is on traffic-free paths, providing a safe way to explore our cities, towns and countryside by foot or bike. 

Pauline Castres, Senior Health Policy Advisor at Unicef, said: “Families choosing active travel is not only good for the environment but has health benefits and reduces children’s exposure to air pollution. All children have the right to live, learn and play in a clean and safe environment. Yet every day, one in three children in the UK is breathing in harmful levels of air pollution that could damage their health and impact their future.

“These survey results highlight a clear need for the UK government to tackle this growing health crisis, by putting children’s health at the heart of its work on air pollution. Unicef UK is urging the government to create a Healthy Air for Children Action Plan promoting urban spaces and active travel schemes and ensuring a child-friendly approach to building walkways and cycle lanes away from polluted roads to reduce children and young people’s exposure to toxic air.”

“  These survey results highlight a clear need for the UK government to tackle this growing health crisis, by putting children’s health at the heart of its work on air pollution. ”

- Pauline Castres, Senior Health Policy Advisor at Unicef.

Julia Hailes MBE, sustainability writer and author of the acclaimed Green Consumer Guide, said: “I’m a huge fan of electric bikes. They really make cycling a realistic replacement to travelling by car - even in rural Dorset, where I live.  And, it’s good exercise too.  Creating cycling paths all over the country is an extremely effective route to cleaner air, better health and tackling climate change.”

Nat Taplin, Director of Good Journey, an organisation which champions car-free leisure travel, said: “This survey has a clear message – that tackling the barriers of poor travel information and cost will make it easier for families to enjoy a car-free day out.

"Kids love the adventure of going by train, bus, bike and foot – free from the confines of the car seat. Having a car-free day out is also one of the best ways we can all help reduce CO2, air pollution, noise and traffic. If we can shift one in 100 day trips out of cars, it will save as much CO2 as taking 50,000 cars off the road.”

Mark Fitzsimons, parent of two from Plymouth, said: “Whenever possible I try not to use my car and have been cycling with my son on the back of my bike since he was six months old. I’ve just bought a cargo bike as my other son is starting school in September and I really don’t want to start driving them both.

“They enjoy the freedom of sitting in the cargo bike as they’re not strapped in; everyone who sees them remarks on how happy they look. It’s also electric which means I have no trouble cycling up hills (there are plenty in Plymouth!) and we take the cargo bike pretty much everywhere – the shops, park and when we visit friends.

“It’s a shame driving is so integrated into our way of life as the benefits of cycling are so wide ranging. You only have to look across to the Netherlands to see how much of a difference it can make to people’s health and also the environment.” 

Find out more about Everyday Adventures

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Scrapped plans for a vital walking and cycle bridge – our response

21 June 2019

Today Transport for London (TfL) has announced that it has scrapped plans for a new walking and cycle Thames crossing from Canary Wharf to Rotherhithe in London. This came a day after plans to build the Silvertown tunnel, a four lane motorway in east London, were revealed.

Sustrans back in 2008 proposed a walking and cycle bridge over the Thames to connect south east London to the Docklands peninsular to make walking and cycling possible for thousands of commuters and residents. Our subsequent feasibility study showed the bridge would lead to a crucial new walking and cycling crossing and provide a vital link across east side of the river.

Commenting on the announcement, Matt Winfield, London Director at Sustrans, said:

“We are hugely disappointed that the Rotherhithe to Canary Wharf bridge has been cancelled. With so much development planned for east London, it is essential that new walking and cycle crossings over the Thames are built so that it is easier for people to reach jobs and services using sustainable, clean modes of transportation.

Cycling and walking are a vital part of the transport mix but not if we force people to share tunnels with motor traffic. London needs significant change to address the problems of air quality, fairness, congestion and health - the cancellation of this bridge takes exactly the opposite approach.”

Find out more about the ‘bike bridge’

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Dublin inspired by UK Bike Life initiative to chart cycling progress in the city

20 June 2019
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Ahead of the world’s biggest cycling conference, Velo-city, which takes place next week in Dublin (25-28 June), the National Transport Authority (NTA) has announced the Dublin Metropolitan Area is to join the Bike Life programme.

Dublin will now join 17 UK cities and urban areas, including Belfast, in the Bike Life programme which began in 2015 and reports every two years on cycling progress.

Delivered by Sustrans, the walking and cycling charity, Bike Life is the UK’s biggest assessment of cycling development, including infrastructure, travel behaviour, satisfaction and the wider impact of cycling on an urban area.

Bike Life is inspired by the Copenhagen Bicycle Account which began in 1996 and has helped transform the Danish capital into a model cycling city where more than 60 per cent of trips are made by bicycle.

Anne Graham, NTA Chief Executive Officer, said she was delighted to join the programme.

“Bike Life gives us an invaluable insight into our progress on cycling in the Dublin Metropolitan Region and the views held by people who live and work there.

“It will help us quantify the health, economic and environmental benefits of cycling, and will provide us with really useful information about the kind of projects that the public believes we should be investing in, if we are to make cycling a safer and more popular mode of transport.”

Xavier Brice, Sustrans Chief Executive, welcomed Dublin to the Bike Life programme:

“It is a very exciting development to welcome Ireland’s capital city to join Bike Life. Since Sustrans began the programme in 2015 it has grown in size and profile with the number of urban areas involved more than doubling in just four years. This is testament to the quality of the data collection and interest by government authorities in the survey findings.

“We know the more cycle-friendly a city is, the more liveable and attractive it is. Dublin has always had a cycling culture but like many UK cities has been blighted in recent decades by the dominance of car traffic. By taking part in Bike Life, our aim is to promote cycling as an everyday means of travel. Dublin will be able to share in learning from the other UK cities and we know the UK can learn from Dublin’s experiences.”

Bike Life surveys a representative group of at least 1,100 people in each of the cities involved covering a wide range of issues including bike ownership, cycling provision (routes and cycle parking), gender and ethnicity, safety and security and perceptions of cycling. The report also looks at the impact cycling has on the health, economy and environment of each city.

The UK cities are Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greater Cambridge, Greater Manchester, Inverness, Liverpool, Newcastle, Paisley, Perth, Southampton, Stirling and Tower Hamlets borough of London. 

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Sussex school children investigate air pollution and its effects, making every day a Clean Air Day

19 June 2019

25 schools across Sussex have been working with walking and cycling charity Sustrans on a major air quality education project funded by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs .

Working in partnership with Sussex Air Quality Partnership and Living Streets, Sustrans aims to raise awareness and engage school communities to keep air quality on the agenda throughout the year, not just on Clean Air Day, which falls on 20 June this year.

Sustrans’ air quality project officer, Daisy Addison, is working on the year-long project with primary school children. The project includes monitoring air quality, data analysis, an awareness campaign and clean air route-mapping.

Daisy said: “Our sessions are fun and informative. They encourage young people to identify the sources and effects of air pollution whilst developing an understanding of what can be done to improve it. Clean Air Day provides an opportunity for all schools to introduce this topic to their pupils and raise awareness of the far-reaching effects of poor air quality to human health and the environment.”

Alongside schools from all over Sussex, pupils from St Luke’s Primary School in Brighton have been investigating lichen and using nitrogen dioxide diffusion tubes to measure and monitor air quality around their school. They have been thinking about how people can work together to help minimise air pollution in a variety of ways, including discussing the role of walking or cycling to school.

Fiona Byrne, teacher at St Luke’s Primary School said: “Year 3 were very engaged with the Air Quality Project because it was about their local area and directly related to their experience. It was a great opportunity for them to do some practical science by using test tubes to test the air quality around the school. We are now using the information to plan healthier routes to school, so benefiting the whole school.”

“  “The evidence on air pollution and the risk it poses to the public’s health is clear, so we must take action. ”

- James Cleeton, Sustrans Director for England South

James Cleeton, Sustrans Director for England South, said: “The evidence on air pollution and the risk it poses to the public’s health is clear, so we must take action.

“It is great to see schools, agencies and communities working together on initiatives like this, which help to raise awareness and tackle the issue of poor air quality.

“We hope that everyone who participates in this project will continue to make choices that help reduce air pollution. Enabling people to make walking and cycling a normal part of their day will play a huge role in improving air quality, particularly around our schools, and will protect future generations for years to come.

“To help clean up our air, the UK Government needs to show leadership by helping local authorities fund and deliver better cycling and walking infrastructure, so that every child is able to travel on foot or by bike to school in safety and with confidence.”

Councillor Anne Pissaridou, Chair of the Environment, Transport and Sustainability Committee at Brighton & Hove City Council, said: “This project has raised important awareness about air pollution as a serious environmental risk to human health.

“As we know, road transport is the biggest source of emissions in Brighton & Hove. By encouraging children and their carers to make more journeys on foot, by bike or on public transport, or turning off the car engine when stationary, this project empowers people to respect and make a difference to the air we breathe.

“The sessions run by Sustrans point our school communities towards ways to cut air pollution and to minimise our exposure to it. We will continue to work with Sustrans to support these initiatives which are so important to informing and educating future generations about the difference they can make to improve air quality in the city and protect our local environment.”

Read more about how every day should be a Clean Air Day

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