Cycles knocking on politics door

Spotted at Newcastle University

I am this string of letters here Dipl-Ing (TU) Katja Leyendecker EurIng CEng CWEM MCIWEM MSc. This such thing happens to you when you are a member of professional institution(s). My heart lies with CIWEM (The Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management) not just because I obtained through them my Chartership (the CEng thing). They are a genuinely good bunch. And I adore Nick Reeves, if you can see me blushing now. Yet, their local presence is thin, as they sit in Leeds, so in Newcastle I am more involved with ICE (Institution of Civil Engineers) on a regular basis. They have meetings called expert panels (yes!) and they are proud of them (but do little to facilitate them).

CIWEM have recently started thinking bike, and developed an Active Transport Policy Position Statement. It was about time. And awaken has the ICE too (was about time too) - but with nothing on their website to prove it yet (but trust me, we heard backroom rumblings). The cogs of that these machines turn slowly! I had been writing to the ICE's New Civil Engineer "letters & opinion" page for a while (years in fact, and on various matters), my latest contribution you can see here and a reckoning blogpost here. Some older stuff here.

The point now for these institutions is to decide where they want to take their message(s). I suggested they team up. I have also suggested that political lobbying is what's needed. The ICE, being a bit like Piglet, can not imagine that for themselves (yet). And CIWEM, possibly being more of an Eeyore type, is pondering the best angle.

Of course it is most important for institutions like these to stand up and be counted - and use their relative moral independence and freedom. As well as their expertise.

I will keep my fingers gingerly (for Piglet) and grudgingly (for Eeyore) crossed.