Aberdeen Cycle Forum meeting minutes 27th January 2026

Present:  Gavin Clark (Chair), Alie Johnson, Katy Hardacre, Fraser Govan, Alan Irving, Fiona McDonald, Rachel Martin, Francesco Sani

Meeting summary

Quick recap

The group discussed various active travel initiatives in Aberdeen, including infrastructure improvements, budget allocations, and safety concerns related to e-bike usage. They reviewed their social media presence and engagement strategies, particularly focusing on their Facebook page’s success in attracting new members. The conversation ended with discussions about insurance changes, potential cycling events, and infrastructure improvements, including concerns about bike lane maintenance and a consultation on a new road project.

Actions

ACC liaison, consultations etc

AWPR & active travel:  GC has been invited to a meeting being held by Jacobs on behalf of Nestrans, to look at the impacts on active travel from the AWPR.  He had asked for comments in the last email bulletin to members, and 5 or 6 had replied so far.  Consensus seemed to be that some local roads on the periphery of Aberdeen are slightly quieter, but mostly not enough of a change to make them attractive places to cycle. In the city it is hard to say traffic levels have changed significantly because of the AWPR, because of Covid and changes related to working practices. Also, some local roads (Counteswells, Blacktop as an example) are clearly being used as rat-runs to bypass the A944 because of congestion around the AWPR junction. This and other junctions are barriers to cycling and are worse, post AWPR.  GC mentioned the approach to Stonehaven as being another particularly bad example.  The meeting is taking place on 10 Feb at 12:00 if anyone else is available to attend.  Fraser has also been invited.

RATN & cycle map:   redevelopment of the map seems to have been subsumed into work being done by Nestrans (and their consultants) related to the Regional Active Travel Network. Via the ACTUP meeting, GC had an update from Caroline Hood who had offered us a meeting to discuss progress with it.  Current version here:  Nestrans RATN Updates July 24

Ashgrove Connects:  there has been an update although it seems to have only been shared with those who had registered for updates and isn’t yet available on the usual ACC consultation hub.

ACC budget consultation:  GC confirmed he had submitted the letter that had been circulated in draft during December. It had been sent directly to Cllrs Yuill and Radley. There were 2 points we wanted to get across:  firstly that ACC is facing a large budget deficit, but proposed spending on the Berryden dualling project (which we have always opposed) is very significant and the deficit would be far less if it was postponed or cancelled. Secondly, that ACC’s claim to want to direct its capital spending towards investments which would help carbon reduction (repeated in the paper which accompanied the consultation) was not genuine, with spending on roads still vastly exceeding that on any cycle infrastructure.  Cycle related spend that we could identify was about 2% of roads spending.

Alie had contacted Cllr Maclellan, who had replied to say that the Berryden scheme didn’t impact the deficit because it was capital rather than revenue spending.  GC noted that the consultation hadn’t made the same distinction.

Katy had done some further analysis of Nestrans spending based on information available in their Board papers.  There seemed to be underspend and generally slow progress on a number of active travel projects, such as Murcar to Blackdog. It was hard to understand all the reasons behind this, but perhaps we should be asking more questions of them.  

Katy has submitted a Freedom of Information request to Transport Scotland to find out whether ACC or Nestrans have submitted applications under the Active Travel infrastructure Fund Tier 2 Design and Construction 2026-27 fund.

Katy also suggested that ahead of our next liaison meeting with ACC we should prepare questions in advance which may help us get quicker and more direct answers.  GC noted he now had a list of their active travel route development schemes, said to be 18km, which we had asked for in June or July last year.

Events team:  again through ACTUP, GC now has a contact for events team, who we have found it difficult to engage with in the past.  We hope to set up a meeting to discuss how cycling can be better integrated into transport planning for major events. Our impression of past events has been that cycling has been ignored or sidelined. Our repeated attempts to help with 2025 Tall Ships had proved fruitless.

Fraser asked if the return of a universal hire scheme might help with this?  He is involved in the steering group and is inputting on various topics including training and safety, in particular drawing on some of his experience with training asylum seekers.

In passing it was also mentioned that there may be a new fleet of hire bikes coming to Transition Extreme with the aim of servicing the tourism market from cruise ship passengers.

Membership

Over the festive period we had contacted those members who have joined ACF but have ‘broadcast’ settings on their account turned off, which means they don’t get our regular communications.  Rachel to check how many are still in that position.

GC had put out a facebook post recently highlighting that only 1 in 8 people who follow our fb posts are actually members. This had resulted in 15-20 new sign-ups in the following week.

Insurance

As previously discussed, we would let our current PLI policy lapse, and instead join CUK as an Affiliate and be covered by the insurance that provides.  That may mean some minor changes to how we organise our activities, but these shouldn’t be insurmountable. Change would be with effect end of Feb – beginning of March.

Social Media

We have a Twitter/X account which is used very occasionally.  GC asked if everyone was content that we retained it or should we close it?  Consensus was to leave as is.

Facebook:  GC offered the opportunity for someone else to have access and make posts. No takers at present (currently 3 people have access although GC does most of it).

Instagram:  largely not being used currently.  GC doesn’t think he has access.

Any other business

GC raised a couple of things that had come in since the agenda had been posted.

Active Travel Manifesto:  this was now being promoted again in the run up to the May elections. Agreed that we will continue to promote it, rather than having any independent campaign of our own.

Pedal on Parliament:  after a break of several years, the Edinburgh PoP ride is back taking place on closed roads, on 30th May.  It was generally agreed that we would like to organise a satellite event, and the Union St – Union Terrace – Broad St – Schoolhill loop that we had used last time was still felt to be the best option, albeit not on closed roads. Fraser was keen to make it a joint event in a similar way to how the Glow ride last year had worked.  

South Harbour Link Road – Alan mentioned that there is a further round of consultation taking place, this time about post-construction traffic measures.  Both he and GC thought the way it was presented was rather odd and hard to fathom.  Agreed we should feed back to ACC with our thoughts.

Deeside Way:   Fiona noted the various barrier improvements which have taken place during the last year.  It wasn’t clear these were a direct result of our previous accessibility campaign, but Fraser thought funding for the work had been provided by Nestrans.

Fiona also asked if in liaison with ACC we could raise the issue of deteriorating ASLs (advance stop boxes) and whether they can be repainted.

Schools:  Katy asked if anyone in ACF might be prepared to speak to a primary school about active travel during an upcoming campaign?  GC suggested approaching Fiona McBain at Walk,Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly Sustrans).

Events: it is believed that there will be an active travel event taking place in March, organised by Nestrans, and similar to one which took place in Ellon late last year.  We have no further details as yet, but we could participate or help to promote it if invited to do so.

Date of next meeting:  Tuesday 24 February, and again at 7.45pm