Ruth Fletcher

Got to admit I'm a bit in awe of @laurenleek.eu. Another wonderful piece of work.

How do you get a city for people instead of a city for cars? Invest 10 minutes watching this timeless presentation by @brenttoderian.bsky.social as part of the @thewalrus.ca Talks. Still completely relevant, with key ideas like “The Power Of Nearness” more recently packaged as The 15-Minute City.

"[Our research] found: - Every additional 100kg of vehicle weight was associated with a 6% increase in odds of pedestrian fatality; - Every additional 10cm of height was associated with an 11% increase in odds of pedestrian fatality. " theconversation.com/big-us-style...

Your annual must-read from Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social

Time for 2026 updates to my annual “opinions about solar” thread, now with storage. If you like these, you might like edition 2 of my book, Solar Power Finance Without The Jargon. A 30% discount code WSQ0437 is valid on publisher website til end of Nov 2026. www.worldscientific.com/worldscibook...

What a treat to host Dr. @linseymarr.bsky.social at Harvard! A MacArthur Fellow "Genius Grant" winner, University Distinguished Professor at Virginia Tech, a friend (fun fact: we were both featured on the same 60 MINUTES episode!). And her talk was amazing, for this reason, in particular... [1/4]

This makes me angry. UK policy on foreign students is wrong because it is racist and corrodes our society. It's also plain stupid: it is wrecking a major UK export industry that provides jobs, growth and innovation for our country.

One reason why I am a nut for devolution is this: central government ministers shouldn't spend their working hours thinking about the correct design of bus stops.

In 1971, 80% of British 7 year olds went to school on their own; today it’s unthinkable. As Meyer Hillman (who has died) pointed out, we’ve removed children from danger rather than removing danger from children – and filled roads with polluting cars on school run www.theguardian.com/environment/...

@ibikebrighton.bsky.social Congratulations, Mark!

What are the government and the police doing about this and why am I not hearing the BBC challenging them about their lack of action?

I've been keeping a list of drivers crashing into houses for the last 18 months. There are so many cases. I haven't seen one where a cyclist killed someone in their living room. couchtripper.com/blog/?p=7401

Striking trend in today’s news: -Canada says it wants a deep partnership with the EU -Australia says it wants same - UK opinion polls show record number wanting to Rejoin EU -TUC calls for govt red lines to be scrapped -Leaders of 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 & N.IRL say they want to be inside EU

I see we are back into one of the intermittent periods of media moral panics about cycling. It is presumably a matter of days before someone calls for mandatory registration and insurance. Please do wake me up if anyone writes something we haven't already read 10,000 times before.

“The pogrom had bad intelligence” is really a bad stance for a Labour MP to take

Kent police said 'no arrests were made' of the people who blocked a port and roads. There's your two-tier policing, folks www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cm...

Three senior Reform figures were involved in those Channel 4 revelations we saw last night. Two have been kicked out. The third is Nigel Farage. Farage should be suspended while this matter is investigated. He has very serious questions to answer.

So, if I understand Nigel Farage's argument correctly it is: "Everyone I trusted and elevated into a position of responsibility is constantly doing crimes that benefit me but of which I somehow have no knowledge. I am a man with the character, judgement, and intelligence to run the country." Ok.

Read Byline Times archive on the associate professor of Divinity, head of Policy for Reform “I'm raising a lot of money for [REFORM UK] .... It gives me enormous power in the party” ✍️ James Orr Channel 4.

It's not often you can pinpoint real, positive change a journalist has caused. But as Turkmeni sources state, @dpcarrington.bsky.social's persistent and probing coverage of this issue has been critical to a change of policy, with massive implications. Big congrats www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This is an inappropriate, credulous & politically biased BBC headline. The claims about savings will be sharply contested. News reports should not imclude what reads as an ediorial endorsememt in the headline www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I wonder how many other people clicked OK to shut up the noise and now don't know what the warning said!

You can now see the %age of low speed roads which are 20mph in any council using this excellent web page from Insight Warehouse.

I have signed this petition. If you're a UK resident, I think you should do so too

You can't predict the turns this sentence takes. Extreme heat is threatening Italy’s “cheese banks,” where hundreds of thousands of Parmigiano-Reggiano wheels are stored as loan collateral. fortune.com/2026/08/10/i...

A Shoreham cycle lane saw 30,000 trips and served five schools before West Sussex County Council removed it. We challenged the decision in court with support from the Cyclists’ Defence Fund. The council admitted it acted unlawfully and agreed to pay £25,000 towards legal costs.

The experts agree.

"Time isn't on Mr Burnham's side, but a majority of the public - tired of the harm Brexit has caused our country - certainly will be." Great letter in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner. VAT cuts are nice, but reintegrating the UK with the EU is the real growth lever.

@eddavey.libdems.org.uk @andyburnham.bsky.social Why are you still both actively using Musk’s X platform?

"First the traitors then the invaders" is Elon Musk endorsing an open call to prioritise political murders + assassinations before violence against migrants and minorities. Still little recognition in the UK government at the persistence of the promotion of political violence - inc murder - by Musk

Wrote about why I think the policy is such a terrible idea here open.substack.com/pub/wewanted...

The whole point of the original policy (which was and is terrible) was to target exactly this group. And now they’re going to introduce the policy and exempt them? Just abandon the policy! The whole thing is just a terrible idea.

If you’re wondering why UK press has suddenly woken up to Farage, please read this. It’s because: Brexit. The r/w press refused to scrutinise the money behind Farage & the lawsuit against me scared off the rest. But this isn’t a new scandal. It’s the same one I’ve been reporting on for a decade

Active Travel England has at last published its rural design guide; www.gov.uk/government/p... Crossposted with @openvibe.social

For more information on how police decide whether to declare incidents terrorism, my most recent work on the subject is this article from last week on rising terror attacks targeting Muslims inews.co.uk/news/uk-terr...

For the "20mph feels slow" crowd, cycle into a wall at 20 and then get back to us. Still think 20 is slow? It's not there to protect drivers, it's there to protect us meat sacks not strapped into a metal box surrounded with airbags.

End damaging conflation of e-bikes & modified kits, @fabianhamilton.bsky.social MP urges the BBC www.cyclingelectric.com/news/end-dam...

Nothing says 'man of the people' quite like a politician calling a by-election at public expense on the issue of whether or not he should have the right to secretly take donations from Thai-based crypto billionaires and a convicted fraudster

Farage decision to resign as an MP, but immediately seek reelection in the ensuing by-election, is an attempt to short-circuit the Parliamentary Standards investigation into his rule-breaking before it concludes Taxpayer will pay cost of by-election Words like arrogance & hypocrisy spring to mind

🧵I’d rather spend my weekends doing something else than post about Nigel Farage’s murky finances, but his behaviour poses such a threat to our democratic norms that I wanted to flag a number of points in the public interest.

Incredible chart from @propublica.org. If you don’t follow enviro stuff closely, your instinct might be that the hold-your-nose solution (carbon capture from fossil fuels) would be the “pragmatic” one versus covering Earth in solar panels, which seems utopian. In fact it’s the opposite

This is why cities need trees. Hard surfaces and parked cars can reach extreme temperatures, while shaded grass and tree-covered areas stay dramatically cooler. This is the urban heat island effect in one image: hard surfaces absorb and radiate heat, while vegetation and shade reduce it.

Thread:

Yep former Health Secretary & soon to be losing PM candidate Wes needs to listen to Prof Sir Chris Whitty & wise up. Bikes not bombs, school streets not nukes & bike lanes not tanks protect our children & our NHS. Also cash was already committed, pays itself back x10 & is peanuts in scheme of things

I don't post much on here but today, I thought some dots needed joining. So, have a read of this, about the most powerful health, cost of living, growth and health intervention you've never heard of www.linkedin.com/pulse/most-p...

With the full caveat that I have never managed a govt dept, as Wes Streeting knows very well having been health secretary, investment in active travel *pays for itself many times over* in better public health outcomes etc. Cutting investment is often a false economy, as the UK knows to its cost.

[Cycling and walking update] Following news posted by @peterwalker99.bsky.social and @lauralaker.bsky.social yesterday, the Third Walking and Cycling Investment Strategy was posted overnight: www.gov.uk/government/p... Also...

But they can’t get the John Lewis exclusive furniture they want! Until a kindly elderly relative - a Celia Imrie type- hands them a John Lewis voucher.

The new EHRC Code of Practice is not fit for purpose. It does not provide clear guidance or do enough to protect everyone from discrimination, and it is not compatible with longstanding British values. @EdDavey.LibDems.org.uk and @MarieCGoldman.bsky.social have written to Bridget Phillipson. ⬇️

Glad Dutch media give a lot of attention to the V2G demo of KIA and Hyundai. Using the batteries of cars to SUPPLY energy to the grid during peaks could be a major solution for the "world leading grid congestion" in the Netherlands. nos.nl/artikel/2616...