At the November 4th meeting of Sheffield City Council, Green councillors proposed an amendment welcoming the Council’s recent commitment to making Sheffield the UK’s premier ‘outdoor city’, but also calling on the Council to recognise that “a true Outdoor City should be a Sheffield where people enjoy spending time outdoors as party of daily life, not only as part of sport and recreation”.  The Green amendment also called on the Council to commit to the establishment of a citywide cycle network “usable by all”.  Unfortunately the Green amendment was rejected by Labour councillors so did not pass.

Green councillor Sarah Jane Smalley, who proposed the Green amendment, said:  “It’s clear that outdoor living is about more than just formal activities like sports.  If the council is serious about making the ‘Outdoor City’ initiative more than a marketing exercise, it needs to take action to make healthy outdoor activity like walking and cycling a part of daily life for people across Sheffield.”

The text of the Green amendment is below.  This was proposed as an addition to a Labour motion welcoming the Council’s development of an ‘Outdoor City Strategy’.  The text of the original Labour motion was agenda item 11 at the November 4th full council meeting, and can be found online at: http://sheffielddemocracy.moderngov.co.uk/ieListDocuments.aspx?CId=154&MId=6018&Ver=4

Amendment to be proposed by Cllr Sarah Jane Smalley and seconded by Cllr Aodan Marken

That the motion now submitted be amended by the addition of new clauses f-k, as follows:

f) welcomes the Administration’s recognition that action needs to be taken to make Sheffield a more pleasant city in which to spend time outdoors and to enable people to be active;

g) recognises the potential of a more pleasant urban environment and better mobility for both residents and visitors to Sheffield;

h) believes that a true ‘Outdoor City’ should be a Sheffield where people enjoy spending time outdoors as part of daily life, not only as part of sport and recreation;

i) believes that enabling people to undertake physical exercise as part of daily life by walking and cycling for transport will deliver far-reaching benefits over and above those that can be achieved by an ‘Outdoor City’ focused on recreation alone;

j) believes that a true ‘Outdoor City’ must be a place where ordinary people can walk and cycle safely and that to enable this to happen a high quality Cycle Network should be built to give people a genuine choice to cycle instead of driving and to allow ordinary people to cycle protected from motor traffic, and that this must be designed to be usable by all;

k) stresses that planning and delivering a high quality Cycle Network must be progressed as a priority in order to meet Sheffield City Council’s aims of increasing the percentage of journeys made by bicycle to 10% in 2025.