On Earth Day, 22nd April, we held a Bike Marking session at Hastings College combined with a pop-up event to engage with students about sustainable transport. Quite a number of bikes came by with their owners, inlcuding a few students and staff, and were marked outside the college by Andy Pope and Stuart Langridge with some help from Paul Bromley; luckily the day turned out sunny and not too windy for our new gazebo. Inside the atrium of the College we ran a travel survey to engage students and staff in conversations around how they travelled to and from the College. Asking students to choose random old buttons to put in paper cups marked car, bike, bus, train, etc. proved an attraction and we had over 400 responses! The results highlight that a high number of students use the train and bus but a large number also rely on cars to get to the College or to drop them off. Bike use was very low; possibly because of the lack of safe cycle routes around the Station and College, and a worry about leaving bikes outside at Hastings Plaza. Ian Sier from Hastings Sustainable Transport Forum joined us for the event and there is definitely the scope to run an event like this again, with representatives from more local cycling and active travel groups and the bus company Stagecoach too. The Student Experience officer, Dan Glover, at Hastings College, was also really helpful and enthusiastic about what we were doing.
