SHEFFIELD CITY REGION
SCR MAYOR DAN JARVIS WITH DAME SARAH STOREY
“Mayor Dan Jarvis tasked us with gathering evidence about active travel so Sheffield City Region could hit the ground running. “Or walking. Or cycling. Or taking the bus!” When it comes to introducing an article about Dame Sarah Storey becoming Sheffield City Region (SCR)’s Active Travel Commissioner, it is fitting to kick off with Prof Steve Haake’s above comment. For the Professor of Sports Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University (SHU) introduced both the SCR Mayor Dan Jarvis and Dame Sarah Storey herself at her appointment event, following that very quip about SHU and the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre’s involvement. But he quickly followed up the light-hearted comment with some pretty serious stats. “I was both astonished and intrigued by information the region gave us about inactivity in this region including that 25-30 per cent are physically active for less than 30 minutes per week,” said Prof Haake.
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“That’s four and a half minutes a day! “Given the expansion of road and car usage over the next five to ten years, that is not a sustainable lifestyle.” And Mayor Jarvis was just as keen to stress the importance at the event, too, telling guests: “Active transport is absolutely central to my Mayoral agenda. I am personally committed to this. This is not simply going through the motions, it is not a PR exercise – we want to deliver transformative change.” Across the Pennines, Olympic cycling champion Chris Boardman joined Greater Manchester’s mayor Andy Burnham earlier this year in asking the government to invest in a national cycling and walking network and is on a mission to improving transport options for all. Major Jarvis returned inspired from a trip to the city, saying he was “incredibly impressed by what Chris and Andy were doing in Manchester and I want us to do something similarly ambitious here in the SCR.
STEVE HAAKE, PROFESSOR OF SPORTS ENGINEERING AT SHEFFIELD HALLAM UNIVERSITY
Sarah joins us at an exciting time and will play a crucial role in helping us to make sure that active travel remains an absolute priority
“To do that, we have recruited an outstanding person as our Active Travel Commissioner.” Introducing Dame Storey as “a hugely respected and influential figure”, “an exceptional, inspirational and passionate individual” and “a fantastic signing”, Mayor Jarvis said: “Sarah joins us at an exciting time and will play a crucial role in helping us to make sure that active travel remains an absolute priority as we make our region’s transport network fit for the 21st century.” Dame Storey was a swimmer at four Paralympic Games before switching to cycling in 2005, and during her career trained and competed at Ponds Forge. Since switching to cycling, she’s added to her five swimming gold medals with a further nine cycling golds at the Paralympics of 2008, 2012 and 2016. She has also competed against able-bodied athletes riding for England at the Commonwealth Games and won medals at UCI Track Cycling World Cup meetings with the able-bodied squad.
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