Goodbye M25, hello bicycles and allotments?

I’m often asked to think about what the future may look like and while it is a serious issue it can also be fun looking back on the past to see if experience gained there might aid us with current issues. A recent trip to Holland had me looking back wistfully to my childhood. What was the cause of my nostalgia? It was a simple trip to a real baker to buy fresh croissants.

Firstly, we walked to the shop which was one of a number of bakers in the town selling fresh bread, cakes and pastries. I was delighted by the industry and community that I saw all around me; the town was filled with a variety of small shops all selling fresh produce and a farmers’ market. It reminded me of when I was a child still at primary school when my mother would send me off on my bicycle with a list to the local shops to buy groceries. Walking or cycling to buy food and having extensive choice locally are something of a novelty now in the UK where the out of town shopping centre has almost strangled the high street.

You can’t go to Holland without remarking on the cyclists. They’re everywhere. Cycling is ingrained in the culture and is the most widely used form of transport in the Netherlands. It’s understandable – the terrain is easy and the infra structure has been created for the cyclist. There are cycle paths separate from motorised traffic; cyclists have their own traffic lights and rules which they largely stick to. Safety helmets are not in evidence, absent even from the heads of moped drivers who are required by law to wear them. The pace of travel away from the motorways seems much more leisurely.

I should own a bicycle in London, but for some reason I am not enthusiastic about cycling around the City. Here, the cyclist and the driver appear to compete in what is a life (and unfortunately sometimes) death battle for limited road space. Perhaps that is the same for all big cities.

Just as the soft insurance market makes us focus on costs and is a catalyst for change, I’m sure rising fuel prices will make us reappraise when we use the car, how far our food travels before it reaches the shops and how we can better manage our existing natural resources. I can’t see things changing that quickly but perhaps we may come full circle. Then and only then will the conversation I had with a journalist about the likelihood of the M25 being sold off for allotments in order to keep pace with the demand for local produce might not seem quite so left of field. Now where did I put those car keys?