TRAINS OF THOUGHT (2)

On Thursday afternoon I met Peter Hendy at Sutton Station for his second visit to Sutton in 8 months and took him and his team to visit some of the highlights of the Smarter Travel Sutton Project.

Our first stop, just outside the station was to speak to the folks from Streetcar, an innovative car sharing club that now has over 120 members in Sutton. Then we moved on to have a look at one of the three new Smart Columns that have been installed in Sutton. The Smart Columns have interactive touch screens which offer easy access to a wealth of services and travel information from rail operators and Transport for London, including Journey Planner, travel updates, taxi finder and you can even print out maps, while broadcast screens show live train departures and the BBC.

Then we were off to meet Paul Cawthorne of Sutton Chamber of Commerce and colleagues from Reed Business Information (RBI) at their sustainable travel event at Quadrant House. RBI is Europe’s biggest online and offline publisher and one of Sutton’s largest employers. The company is clearly committed to the environment and has an environmental management system in place, as well as progressive policies to promote Smarter Travel – such as home working, flexi-working and tele-working, interest free bike loans. They have even reduced their car parking capacity to encourage more sustainable travel choices.

We spent too long at RBI – because they had so many interesting things to tell us – but we soon made up time on our way to our final destination, Wandle Valley School aboard one of Sutton Community Transport’s excellent Optare Aleros buses. The buses run on a biodiesel fuel mix and have extremely low emissions and they were paid for by a grant from STS.

At the school we were met by Head Teacher Doug Bone. Doug and his team run a truly inspirational school for young people who have experienced some behavioural difficulties in mainstream schools. I was really impressed to see how the school has embraced school travel planning and how the young people are really living the principles of sustainable travel. Doug was very welcoming and inspiring.

After that it was a quick trip back to Sutton Station to see Peter and the team off to London again after what was, I hope, a very useful visit.


Streetcar http://www.streetcar.co.uk/

Reed Business Information http://www.reedbusiness.co.uk/rb2_home/rb2_home.htm

Sutton Chamber of Commerce http://www.suttonchamber.biz

Sutton Community Transport http://www.suttonct.co.uk/

Wandle Valley School http://www.suttonlea.org/pages/dirinfo.asp?dfee=7005