Note: This transcript was exported from the video version of this episode, and it has not been copyedited

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:24:26
Cllr James McAsh
Absolutely. I think pretty much any child, given the choice between driving school and walking to school, which is walking to school, is a very different experience to be to explore the world around you, to, you know, reflect on the nature, go to the most part, stops for a little while to play in swings, these kinds of things. I mean, these are absolutely, I think, what most children want to do, and it's kind of linked back to what you were saying about it's not a war on cars.

00:00:24:27 - 00:00:42:18
Cllr James McAsh
I think most parents want to do that as well. And it's not a failure on their part that they're not doing that is a failure on our part collectively, that we're not building a transport. It's still a society that makes that easy. And we we've made it far too easy to drive, made it far too difficult to do everything else.

00:00:42:25 - 00:00:43:26
Cllr James McAsh
And that's what they wanted.

00:00:43:28 - 00:01:08:09
John Simmerman
Hey everyone, welcome to the Active Towns Channel. My name is John Simmerman and that is Councilor James McAsh from the Southwark Borough of London. And we're going to be talking about the streets for people initiatives that they have in their borough. And it's a fascinating discussion and really addressing some of the challenges that we all face globally of, you know, changing the street space and how they are navigating that.

00:01:08:16 - 00:01:28:29
John Simmerman
But before we get to that, if you are enjoying this content here on the Active Town Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Super easy to do. Just navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on the support tab at the top of the page. Several different options including becoming a Patreon supporter. Patrons do get early and ad free access to this video content.

00:01:29:02 - 00:01:36:21
John Simmerman
Okay, commercial over. Let's get to it with James.

00:01:36:24 - 00:01:43:05
John Simmerman
Councilor James McAsh, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns Podcast. Welcome.

00:01:43:07 - 00:01:46:00
Cllr James McAsh
Thank you so much for inviting me. It's great to be here.

00:01:46:02 - 00:01:53:11
John Simmerman
I love giving my guest as an opportunity to introduce themselves. So, who the heck is James?

00:01:53:14 - 00:02:18:29
Cllr James McAsh
My gosh. Good question I ask myself every day. So I am a labor councilor, so I'm an elected municipal politician in, the London Borough of Sadiq. So that's a part of parts of London. And I've been doing this for about seven years, four years initially as what we call a backbench councilor. So someone who, you know, represents their patch but doesn't have any kind of borough wide responsibilities.

00:02:19:01 - 00:02:36:14
Cllr James McAsh
But in the past three years, it's been what is essentially a full time round, having leadership responsibilities for parts of the council as work, initially on land use, regeneration and planning, and in the last two years on transport, obviously, that's why why I'm here today.

00:02:36:17 - 00:02:48:20
John Simmerman
Fantastic. And is that a fairly lengthy term in terms of like seven years? Is that or is that kind of average for, you know, this type of public service?

00:02:48:22 - 00:03:08:12
Cllr James McAsh
So we councilors are elected generally for about four years. So I've been reelected. I was elected in 2018 and then reelected in 2022. And I suppose there are some people who do that for a very, very long time, and some people do have much less time. I think there's a big difference in terms of age as well.

00:03:08:12 - 00:03:30:09
Cllr James McAsh
So frequently it's quite common, particularly in smaller towns, for people who are retired and are doing this after they've finished their working career, and obviously that then they maybe do for ten, 15 years or something potentially. Whereas I think where I am, there's a lot there's a lot more of us who are younger. There's, there's a, there's a real range of ages, but there are a lot more younger councilors.

00:03:30:17 - 00:03:38:21
Cllr James McAsh
And for them, it's much more likely that they can do it for a little while and then they move on. And sometimes you leave London to a different part.

00:03:38:23 - 00:03:55:06
John Simmerman
And let me just make sure that I'm getting the location correct. So if we pull up the map here and we take a look at, where we're at, we see, you know, here's London, we've got the London Bridge. Is it literally just south of the river there?

00:03:55:08 - 00:04:16:00
Cllr James McAsh
Yes. So the London is divided into 33 local authorities. 32 focus on this funny thing called the City of London, which is, very controversial. And also but not, not so today. And so this is one of days so that, is right up to the all south of the river. So it's northern flank. Is the river so important?

00:04:16:02 - 00:04:41:15
Cllr James McAsh
But what is with the river and includes some famous spots like Tower Bridge, which is the most famous bridge in London, and London Bridge, which is, not the most famous one. It's actually looks very boring, but it's got the good guys. We've also got some fairly famous landmarks that people might be familiar with across the world, like the Taste Museum, which is the kind of the Tate Modern art museum.

00:04:41:18 - 00:05:15:10
Cllr James McAsh
We also have the Globe Theater, which is, you know, the Shakespearean theater. And we have, what was it? Well, a whole range of range of different places around that, that kind of area in the north, the borough. And then we we stretch really quite far south. So in terms of the transport policy, we have a very big motorway that goes around all on the M25 and then a smaller loop that goes round, the kind of in the middle, almost, a middle kind of level orbital called the North Circular and South Circular.

00:05:15:18 - 00:05:32:13
Cllr James McAsh
And so that actually stretches below the South Circular. So we go way to the south, and you can see on that map that's at Camberwell, which you can see on the map, is about halfway down the if you can see that the whole museum and garden, down there at the bottom of your screen, that's still in number.

00:05:32:13 - 00:05:35:21
Cllr James McAsh
So that is it really does go quite a long way.

00:05:35:23 - 00:05:41:28
John Simmerman
That is a really, really big borough. Yeah. And what's the population of your borough?

00:05:42:00 - 00:05:43:13
Cllr James McAsh
330,000.

00:05:43:15 - 00:05:44:03
John Simmerman
300 and.

00:05:44:03 - 00:05:45:17
Cllr James McAsh
50. Bigger than most businesses.

00:05:45:22 - 00:06:09:26
John Simmerman
And it's big, bigger than most. And so you hit my radar, because of some posts, out on social media, I believe it was LinkedIn, about some of the work that you were doing. With regards and, and very similar to other boroughs there in London that you're doing in terms of trying to traffic calm and create, streets for people in.

00:06:09:26 - 00:06:28:27
John Simmerman
And of course, I had to laugh because my tagline is streets are for people, and your tagline is streets for people. Talk a little bit about that and, and include in there what made you so passionate about serving public service and in this streets for people?

00:06:28:29 - 00:06:52:20
Cllr James McAsh
Yeah. So I mean, I'll maybe talk a bit about the second bit. First the movements, but first it's about what I kind of got involved in there. So I've always been very politically engaged. I grew up in a household where we would talk about politics around the table. That kind of thing. And when I got to university, I became politically active and not through party politics, but through protest and social movement.

00:06:52:20 - 00:07:15:27
Cllr James McAsh
We had a very big let's, conflict with the government at the time around tuition fees and nothing to do with walking, cycling. But the thing that had in common is about justice for social justice and economic justice. And that's kind of how I got involved. And then from there, when I graduated from university, I worked for charity for a while, then I became a teacher, and I still am a teacher.

00:07:15:27 - 00:07:34:29
Cllr James McAsh
So I'm a primary school teacher, although now that's a very small part of my week. Whereas previously, with my full time role now I tend to go that one on occasionally two days in a week. And I became a trade unionist as well, and all these kind of things were all about the same with values and drawing to me, which was about creating a fair, well, pretty much yes world.

00:07:35:02 - 00:07:58:05
Cllr James McAsh
And, it's true that I've been involved in the Labor Party as well. The British Labor Party, Democratic Socialist Party. I sort of fell into being a councilor, in 2018. And as I said before, I spent four years kind of representing my own little patch, but not really having kind of a borough wide responsibilities. So I do casework on behalf of people in serving in housing need, for instance.

00:07:58:07 - 00:08:25:27
Cllr James McAsh
And I would be involved in discussions as a whole with the other 51 labor councilors in my borough. But I didn't have any direct responsibility or leadership roles for the borough. That changed in 2022, when I took up a role in what's called the cabinet. So essentially, the group of ten people or the leader that two leader and eight others who had effectively a full time role, some people do a little bit of of the work on the side, and we split all the responsibilities of the council between those ten.

00:08:26:04 - 00:09:02:28
Cllr James McAsh
So you have another colleague who's in charge of adult social care, a colleague in charge of children's social care education, a colleague in charge of the climate emergency and businesses in town centers, and the colleague in charge of urban regeneration, one in charge of housing, etc.. And at that point, my responsibility was, urban regeneration. So the planning process and, zoning on these kinds of things and we were in an interesting borough for that because maybe 20 or 30 years ago, people wouldn't consider to be involved in, you know, London because there's be an outlet.

00:09:03:01 - 00:09:27:22
Cllr James McAsh
And now that's simply not the case. I mean, the kind of landmarks I spoke about at the beginning of the podcast, but anyone who knows one did would see those as clearly central London locations. Absolutely. And so the the area kind of transformed. And that was a lot of good things. But it also did kind of, you know, create tension, conflict with the people who already live in these areas that were being regenerated.

00:09:27:25 - 00:09:47:09
Cllr James McAsh
So one thing I wanted to do in that brief was launch what we called the Land Commission. We brought together radical thinkers, landowners across the borough and the community all together to say, how can better use our land? And one of the things that came out, I mean, there's lots of things I can talk about on that, but on the transport.

00:09:47:15 - 00:10:10:21
Cllr James McAsh
But one of the things that came out of that is how much land is publicly owned. Almost 50% of the land, you know, borough is owned by the state in some form, whether that's the UK government, whether that's so that council, whether it's the Transport Authority, transport for London, a range of other bodies. And we looked at them so well, how can we use this land that we, that we publicly owned, we collectively owned better use.

00:10:10:28 - 00:10:30:02
Cllr James McAsh
We realize a lot of this from the highway and the first instincts there. So okay. Well that one's already we can't reallocate that one. But it's already being put to use for, you know, for what's for transport. That's what. Well, hang on a minute. Is that right? But who is using this land? How is this land being used?

00:10:30:04 - 00:10:53:04
Cllr James McAsh
And then very shortly after that, I took the transport race, took that kind of idea of land justice into transport. I'd start by saying, okay, we are not highways or highways. A publicly owned who's using them? The vast majority of that space is used for private motor vehicles and for majority of our residents, the majority of the households in Suffolk do not own a car.

00:10:53:06 - 00:11:19:04
Cllr James McAsh
So it has something as owned by everyone, being used by a section, a minority of the population and not a minority, the people who tend to be wealthier, the people that car now on a central economic justice level, that's wrong. So we took that principle into streets for people, which was the transport policy we worked on, which was I was fortunate to go to launch, and that was a key kind of thing that I brought into.

00:11:19:04 - 00:11:41:15
Cllr James McAsh
It is reshaping about this position, this question of justice and use of space, use of land. And we we said the big shift for us was to think about some of the local authorities who've done as well, is we started to explicitly say we need to take away space from cars. So up until that point, we sort of tried to talk about balance.

00:11:41:15 - 00:12:11:26
Cllr James McAsh
Let's talk about how it's important that we have all different kind of road users, able to use the space, which is of course true, but we have to start with position actually, cause we've already taken up way more than their fair share. So having that fair distribution means taking a lot of space away from cars and giving it to other uses, whether that's transport, walking, cycling, public transport or indeed non transport uses the opportunity for children to play in the streets, for adults to connect, for businesses to use it for their customers.

00:12:11:29 - 00:12:33:18
Cllr James McAsh
And what was really me, really exciting and really important about that is that up until that point, people said, oh, the council has this secret anti-caa agenda and you know, when people will sort of say that we say, no, we don't have a car. And, and so on. At this point, I was able to not quite so, frankly, but I can say, yes, we do have fancy cars.

00:12:33:18 - 00:12:50:07
Cllr James McAsh
And we think that too much space is devoted to cars. We're going to take some of that space away and use it for other things. And at that point, the kind of the activists on the motorist activists sort of run out of things to say because, you know, you're just being upfront, say, yes, that's what we believe. But I've always trying do.

00:12:50:10 - 00:13:20:03
John Simmerman
Yeah. Well, and I like to say that, you know, it's really not a war on cars is is as much as it is a war on car dependency and bringing things back into balance. We let things get way out of balance and prioritize the movement of cars over the priorities that we have here on screen, which is prioritizing people and, you know, the ability to still be able to get to meaningful destinations by car is still there.

00:13:20:03 - 00:13:52:22
John Simmerman
It's still preserved. It's not completely eliminated. That's not the point. And so it really is about trying to deliver on the priorities of, you know, serving the people. And, you know, further down on this particular document, we have, a good depiction of, in fact, the, that long and, you know, sort of almost triangular shape there, of the borough, you know, again, the top side there, the north edge of it is where the river is, but we've got the walking network here.

00:13:52:26 - 00:14:15:23
John Simmerman
And then we also have the cycling network and the bus routes that, you know, identified here within the borough. That is really, really fascinating. And so really, a lot of this came about during that period of time since you were elected, in 2022, you're just coming off of the lockdown of the pandemic. You were, you know, serving in that other role.

00:14:15:26 - 00:14:31:28
John Simmerman
Did you see some, low traffic network and low traffic neighborhood installations and streets for people installations during the actual lockdown, during the pandemic, where some of them were in place even before that?

00:14:32:01 - 00:15:02:04
Cllr James McAsh
Yes. No, it it is so so I, I don't want to overstate my role in this is that we were doing a slice of things before I, before I took up this post. Well, so in the Covid chariot, the rules were changed temporarily and it was possible for local authorities to make quite big changes in the street space to remove traffic motor vehicles from roads, to make it easier to walk and cycle, and also to social distance, which obviously is something we don't think about anymore at the time, that was quite important as well.

00:15:02:04 - 00:15:06:25
Cllr James McAsh
So much wider pavements, social distancing, I mean, some of those, innovation.

00:15:06:27 - 00:15:14:01
John Simmerman
Years ago, five years ago this, this week, this month, you know, is when I think you down. Yeah, yeah.

00:15:14:04 - 00:15:34:26
Cllr James McAsh
And so we, I think at that point you made a bit of a lethal as we started doing innovative things we hadn't done before. And I think kind of what I've essentially done is try to formalize that in our strategy to try and do some of these things in a more kind of consistent way throughout our general work.

00:15:35:03 - 00:16:04:10
Cllr James McAsh
So for me, the big shift is away from protecting work, pedestrians and cyclists from traffic towards reducing traffic. So obviously, still occasions on busy main roads where those protections are important. So I'm thinking segregated cycle lanes, really signalized cross crossings for pedestrians. These things are important. But on your neighborhood streets, those things shouldn't be necessary because you should not have enough traffic to marathons.

00:16:04:13 - 00:16:08:03
Cllr James McAsh
But that only happens if you put in measures to reduce the traffic.

00:16:08:05 - 00:16:22:25
John Simmerman
Yeah, there's a couple of images here from, a car free to give a little context and background, and we'll play, this little video that we have, on, on cued up here in just a little bit. What was this car free day all about?

00:16:22:27 - 00:16:47:00
Cllr James McAsh
So we've tried to make each car free day bigger than the last. This is last year's Concretize, and we allowed residents or encouraged residents from across the whole borough to put forward their street consideration. And 1 or 2 things, either a play street or a street party. And the two are pretty similar. But the difference in ways to a play street is whatever.

00:16:47:00 - 00:17:17:07
Cllr James McAsh
It is closed off, and children are encouraged to play in the streets and, you know, resources are provided for them to be able to do that. And that would normally be for about half a day something or a street party is where it's closed up at the same reason, and they can use that for a longer period of time throughout the whole day, sometimes even with the preparation time included, it's about slightly over a day, and that can be used to, in I think the case from the image, proceeding was to raise money for a community center, for instance.

00:17:17:10 - 00:17:28:19
Cllr James McAsh
So it's about taking this public space that we all own collectively and being able to use it for this range of different things, whether it's children playing or whether it's bringing the community together.

00:17:28:22 - 00:17:40:13
John Simmerman
Interesting. We have a couple of images that are before and after. I'll start with this set here and and kind of walk us through what this transformation was all about.

00:17:40:15 - 00:18:07:28
Cllr James McAsh
So this is labeled as before, but actually in reality, this is partway through the process because what you have there, as you have a normal street designed for cars to go down as you can kind of state, but there's two parameters put in the way those planters were, I'm pretty sure, a Covid legacy. So during Covid, the this road was closed temporarily as planters were, you know, very, very cheap, very easy to put in, to put them in.

00:18:07:28 - 00:18:27:18
Cllr James McAsh
And then all of a sudden you transformed that street. And that was really important for connecting up. So that was one example of what is possible was a network that connected all sorts of different, streets and residences to the local parks for local schools. And then if you want to look at the next image, then, this is what we did afterwards.

00:18:27:18 - 00:18:51:28
Cllr James McAsh
So we had made essentially technically this haven't changed. But once responses went in that became streets that cars couldn't access. And then we redesigned it this way, which I think, I hope you'll agree is looks much nicer. And it's designed very clearly with a cycleway down the middle, bi directional. So bike lanes, with no cars at all and very nice pavements on each side and pedestrians.

00:18:52:01 - 00:19:17:08
John Simmerman
Fascinating. Yeah. What a beautiful installation. That this really is. And you can see the, the difference between the pavements, the sidewalks, as we call them here in the United States, you know, much more constrained on this side. And then when you, you know, go over to the after picture, the pavements have really, increased. Plus you have some planting of some street trees.

00:19:17:08 - 00:19:54:11
John Simmerman
And so you have a little bit of paving, that has happened here too. So from a sustainability perspective, you're also, you know, bringing in some of that heat island effect down. You see, the pavements have been done in lighter stones again helping decrease the heat island effect. Really, really well done. Beautiful. How well was this received by, you know, the the local community use is something that once it was in and they got used to it, you know, became quite enthusiastic about it and more areas saying, we want more of this.

00:19:54:13 - 00:20:11:21
Cllr James McAsh
Yeah. So it's interesting the, the two great things we did is lots of small screens growing over this. But the two very big ones that we did, was this, which is, I say, not just this road, but this network of roads, which is an area called Lois Lane, which is something else in an area called Dulles.

00:20:11:23 - 00:20:38:23
Cllr James McAsh
And the interesting thing is the difference in demographics, between the two. So Walworth is a relatively low income neighborhoods. It's very ethnically diverse and it has very low car ownership but very high air pollution. So as a result, the people living there obviously the variety of use, but for them, traffic is something that comes from outside of their neighborhood, goes through their neighborhoods and leaves the pollution behind.

00:20:38:29 - 00:21:00:11
Cllr James McAsh
So it's a it's not a positive thing for them overall, I agree. You know, there are a range of issues, of course. So when this came in, there was some controversy about it. Absolutely. You know, sometimes change can be quite a scary thing. And to, you know, around issues and lots of parking and this kind of thing. So there was, you know, some concern raised, but it quickly dissipated.

00:21:00:11 - 00:21:27:19
Cllr James McAsh
And people saw what an amazing impact it was having. At the other end of the spectrum, this other part of the borough is Dawlish village village. This is much leafs, but much further south, it's very wide streets, much bigger houses. It's, it's the whitest and most affluent part of Alabama. And there you have a very, very mobilized group of people who are really in favor of these measures.

00:21:27:19 - 00:21:57:13
Cllr James McAsh
You really want to be able to walk and cycle with their kids to school, but you also have a very mobilized group of people if you want to be able to drive, work. So through, through these areas. So that essentially created quite a lot of conflict really for some time. But was I think the key difference really is in these areas, if people are used to driving and they own cars themselves, they're going to find it more difficult to kind of get used to these changes than if they didn't.

00:21:57:16 - 00:22:10:28
Cllr James McAsh
So that's why in general, we're trying to prioritize places with lower car ownership. We think that's kind of more socially just. But at the same time, very wise people living in these areas, the high currency, if you want to do the height, then we need to do that as well.

00:22:11:01 - 00:22:20:08
John Simmerman
Got it. You know, relatively speaking, is this, you know, further to the north or is this further to the south in the more leafy, neighborhoods they were just referring to?

00:22:20:11 - 00:22:26:16
Cllr James McAsh
That's, fairly decent, I guess, probably in terms of are you saying that more more South. That's okay.

00:22:26:16 - 00:22:29:11
John Simmerman
Yeah. All right. Let's press play.

00:22:29:13 - 00:22:52:08
Southwark Resident
Having a car free street means that we can let all the kids out to play safely, and so that the neighbors can come out and have a chat. And we can all enjoy catching up with each other and being in each other's company. The kids really love it. They find it all a bit of a novelty to be allowed to play on the road, and it's just a really nice excuse to catch up with our friends and neighbors.

00:22:52:10 - 00:23:19:29
John Simmerman
But it's it's really, really interesting, too, because there's this pent up demand and need, I think was in our communities and this is globally that when a street is sort of, you know, closed down to the high volumes and high speed motor vehicle traffic and turned back over to people, there's just like this in Herron Glee that comes from being able to to really occupy the space.

00:23:20:00 - 00:23:57:05
John Simmerman
And the reason why I've raised, you know, you know, my little mantra of streets are for people is, is really dating back to the fact that, you know, before the automobile, that's literally where we gathered it was the largest public space that we had in our public realm. So I really do believe that there's that, that pent up demand and need for, you know, coming together as people, you know, in this common area that over the last 80 to 100 years just, you know, increasingly became, exclusive to the movement of big metal boxes on rubber wheels.

00:23:57:08 - 00:24:17:16
Cllr James McAsh
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I, I, I heard recently that initially it was illegal to park your car on the highway because that's your private property and it's you don't leave your private property in public space. But over time, that was in demand and it became normal. And now that is the case. But I think it is something, you know, worth questioning.

00:24:17:19 - 00:24:37:07
Cllr James McAsh
Why is it that we do allow people to do that? I mean, I'm not saying you can overturn that overnight, but the idea that is public space isn't allocated to all us to use, like in a, in a, in a collaborative way. Is, is that storage space or transfer place for people in their private in their private property?

00:24:37:14 - 00:24:54:21
Cllr James McAsh
Is is quite odd really. And as you say, what's interesting is when you challenge that we try and take that space. But at first, sometimes people don't like it. At first it's controversial, but as time goes on or people almost never want it to go back to her.

00:24:54:24 - 00:25:14:15
John Simmerman
Right? Right. On screen now, we, especially for the listening audience, we will describe this a little bit. We have a sign that says pedestrian and cycle zone. And and then there's a, red circle here, and then there's some time, parameters to this. Walk us through what this particular installation is all about.

00:25:14:21 - 00:25:41:10
Cllr James McAsh
So this is what we call a school street. So as well as the permanent 24 hour day, traffic changes that we've talked about, and then we have across the borough try to of these school streets and every school that wants them so long as they're in a place where possible. So it's not possible. And privacy rights essentially what that means is for maybe, two hours a day or something roughly equivalent to that half in the morning, half.

00:25:41:10 - 00:26:06:02
Cllr James McAsh
And yet to noon, around the time where children are either rising or leaving school, no cars are allowed in that. And essentially what that does is it means that as much safer environment for children to come out, come out of that school to walk, cycle home or indeed actually to, to get picked up from if they are in a car, they have to walk, you know, around the block, busses, cars on or waiting there.

00:26:06:04 - 00:26:31:09
Cllr James McAsh
And also is a way of tackling air quality as well. So you don't have parents sitting in their vehicles idling with the engine running and, you know, the fields kind of coming out. What we found with these school streets is that they are much less controversial. People generally accept the logic to having these kind of safe havens around schools.

00:26:31:12 - 00:26:37:09
Cllr James McAsh
And as a result, we can do, as much as we can in as many places we can.

00:26:37:11 - 00:27:11:13
John Simmerman
I'm glad you mentioned and phrased it in that way. Do you get the sense, based on your experience, that this is like a a way to prime the pump, so to speak, for communities to be able to accept the expansion of low traffic neighborhoods and slower streets in general. And when you sort of get a foothold in front of those schools that, you know, since that's like a critical area to bring motor vehicle traffic down, speeds down, maybe even, you know, prevent them permanently.

00:27:11:15 - 00:27:29:01
John Simmerman
Do you think that that helps get the momentum to then be able to spread this? I don't want to say like a virus, but, yeah. What the heck? We're five years out from the coronavirus, so. But you know what I mean? Is, like, it kind of gets some virality to it, and, and people are like, yeah, this is catching on.

00:27:29:03 - 00:27:56:05
John Simmerman
They did it in front of the street from in front of the schools there. And gosh, we've got this neighborhood area that doesn't necessarily have a school, but it's got parks. It's got, you know, really nice cafes and restaurants. You know, this should be also a low traffic area. Do you get the sense that the that this is kind of like a step process, start with the schools and then and then start getting other strategic areas to slow traffic down.

00:27:56:07 - 00:28:15:05
Cllr James McAsh
Yeah I think it's but so it's a very constrained area. Area around the school was very constrained of a time. But I think both the amount of time and the larger space kind of expands once you've proven the concept if people living on the streets around. So if you hang on a minute for ten hours a day, every day.

00:28:15:05 - 00:28:34:06
Cllr James McAsh
My streets are really lovely, and the rest of the time it's not so good. The logical conclusion is it's quite obvious, isn't it? We should expand that to be a permanent change. Ditto. What then happens with the parents? It's sometimes they say, well, actually it is not really safe to do the last 2 or 300m of the school.

00:28:34:12 - 00:28:50:29
Cllr James McAsh
What about the rest of my rates? How else to it? But I do busy roads. There's a lot of traffic. It's quite an unpleasant place to work. I can't hear my child because all the cars driving past. And then. So what? You then build from the inside of the school streets and then you start talking about, say, free school.

00:28:51:01 - 00:29:20:10
Cllr James McAsh
And that kind of expands on that. You start looking at, whole neighborhoods. So it is a good way, I think, of testing the water in terms of what people are interested doing. Obviously, we you know, we live in a democratic environment, and it is very important to kind of when people over to these arguments do the math, right, and the school street is proof of concept because people when when you kind of if, if you just put out a plan with a map and say you won't be able to drive it, you currently drive and you'll be able to.

00:29:20:12 - 00:29:30:12
Cllr James McAsh
It was right for my people. They don't want that because that's that seems like a negative. Once they see the impact and particularly the impacts for the children. The case is map is made.

00:29:30:15 - 00:29:48:18
John Simmerman
Yeah. This is another, type of installation here. Just kind of observing what I'm seeing here. It looks like this was a quick build, raised crossing here at the crosswalk. What else can you tell us about this particular installation, of the streets for people program?

00:29:48:20 - 00:30:05:13
Cllr James McAsh
Yes. This is part of a wider network of, changes in, in one area and also also involved, in fact, I think, and you can see that not only is it a raised table, we call it a rate table for the crossing. It's also expanded the pavement as well.

00:30:05:15 - 00:30:12:22
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, you can, you can, you can see the pavement is, is done. And by doing that it makes a shorter crossing to. Yeah.

00:30:12:27 - 00:30:22:28
Cllr James McAsh
Pathways and shorter crossings, better crossing for the pedestrians. And also it helps contribute towards traffic calming as well because there's a narrow lane for the vehicles.

00:30:23:01 - 00:30:42:24
John Simmerman
Yeah I love it I love it I want to pull up another before and after that, I, you know, caught my attention. It is quite, quite nice. And then I want to play, a little video from, from a young type that, is talking about walking to school, but let's, let's pull this up.

00:30:42:24 - 00:30:54:25
John Simmerman
This is the Windsor walk. And this is the before picture. Go ahead and describe what we're looking at, especially for those people who might just be listening to this, this podcast episode shot.

00:30:54:25 - 00:31:28:25
Cllr James McAsh
So this is again, like the first before photo that actually is part of the way down. Because what you have is you have, roads with that has enough space for two lanes of traffic, and it lines up both ways when they're parking. And it's actually on a bridge on the left hand side, you can kind of see the edge of the bridge is over a roadway, and on the right hand side is what used to be one of the entrances to the railway, but is now entrance to a pub and restaurant which is in the building with the railway station.

00:31:28:27 - 00:31:32:22
John Simmerman
Nice. I love it.

00:31:32:24 - 00:31:55:04
Cllr James McAsh
And what it says is that this is not quite before and kind of pathways through you can see that there are, parasols. So, coverings in the middle of that of the road. What's happened is that expanded the space that the, the pub slash restaurant is able to use. So you can't see the tables, that you get more clear out.

00:31:55:09 - 00:32:15:09
Cllr James McAsh
So the that in that space they were allowed they've applied for license to expand the tables out into the carriageway, essentially out into the road. So that road ceased. It was technically still roads, but in terms of traffic management it was you weren't allowed to drive down anymore because, you know, for tables with, that again, was that something happened during Covid.

00:32:15:15 - 00:32:37:11
Cllr James McAsh
And then this after picture we have now is the space that was previously carried away, but with a lounge with tables is now. So so it's been like kind of paving, very light color. There's plenty of space nowadays for pedestrians to walk through, but also for that local business to spill out into that space and increase the custom.

00:32:37:14 - 00:32:58:15
Cllr James McAsh
And then on the other side is now cycling. So again, if for directions like lane, no access for motor vehicles at all, just for cyclists. So again, what we've done really. Exactly. That's kind of it's a good example of these. That principle were applied is we did have a lot of space, that was designed for cars.

00:32:58:23 - 00:33:09:19
Cllr James McAsh
We've taken all of that space away from cars and we've allocated it to better space, pedestrians, better space for cyclists and better space for that business. Everyone's with it.

00:33:09:21 - 00:33:50:01
John Simmerman
I love this too, because we're not only have we expanded the the public realm, the opportunity for pedestrians to have a nice, comfortable space. As you mentioned, we're using lighter materials on the pavements there. Again, bringing that heat island effect down, which is is critical during the summer months when when I was there, it was, you know, there were some days that were quite warm, but at the same time we're we're maintaining mobility options, you know, for people on bikes for, for, individuals who might be in mobility devices, wheelchairs and adaptive cycles if they have disabilities, but they are able to use an adaptive cycle, they can still get through here.

00:33:50:01 - 00:34:15:16
John Simmerman
So you maintain the transport side of it, but at the same time, you're creating a delightful environment and and since you don't have the exhaust and the noise of motor vehicles, rolling through here, it can be a pleasant experience for that. That pub that is reusing that old space from the railway. This is brilliant. Absolutely fantastic stuff.

00:34:15:16 - 00:34:44:08
John Simmerman
And again, kind of going back to what we touched upon earlier in the very, very beginning is change is difficult. And so we do get pushback. Whenever there is a change to, to our public realm and being empathetic to individuals who have become used to driving everywhere for everything, and the habit of just getting in your car and going it almost seems like a personal assault to them.

00:34:44:11 - 00:35:06:29
John Simmerman
How have you, as a borough and as a city? How have you guys been like navigating that? Because I know it can be difficult sometimes it seems like the area maybe getting momentum and things are happening and everybody's like, oh, this is really cool. As more and more and more and then you push a little bit and it's like, oh no, we pushed too far and now we're getting massive resistance.

00:35:06:29 - 00:35:27:10
John Simmerman
And unfortunately it gets turned into culture war issues and and all that kind of stuff. How are you how are you guys, any lessons learned and any wisdom that you can pass along? Because this is the challenge that's happening globally. This isn't you know, anything that's just, you know, the UK and isn't just, you know, the United States.

00:35:27:10 - 00:35:39:14
John Simmerman
I mean, we are experiencing this globally. So any wisdom that you guys might have from, you know, the the bumps and bruises that you all have in, you know, sort of endured.

00:35:39:17 - 00:36:08:17
Cllr James McAsh
A solutely I think the I mean, the important thing to remember in all of this is when you're trying to introduce something that is more equal and more fair to people who privilege benefited from the unequal system, will experience that as unfairness. They'll experience that as oppression. When in reality it is it is equality. And I think that's really important to remember in terms of what kind of questions, what kind of consultation you want to do.

00:36:08:20 - 00:36:28:10
Cllr James McAsh
So we I think in the past I got really bogged down with kind of endlessly fighting the same battle over and over again. And so when I inherit the brief on this, I currently have, we had a draft, the streets, the people, our transport strategy. And the plan was I would finish it off and then we go to consultation.

00:36:28:14 - 00:36:50:03
Cllr James McAsh
We consult on that for a few months and then we would come back and edit it and amended in response to consultation. As the consultation is useful, it can improve the work that we're doing. But I took the I took the view that, well, actually this is only setting out our principles. And we know often we've had endless consultation in the past with the residents.

00:36:50:03 - 00:37:08:12
Cllr James McAsh
We also have an electoral mandate, for the political party I represent. So we're not going to consult on the principles. We're going to go and say, this is our approach, this is what we believe, and instead we're going to use that resource and respect consulting on the strategy and say, consulting people something much more tangible. What do you want on your street?

00:37:08:14 - 00:37:37:23
Cllr James McAsh
So we went out on that simple question, and it was the biggest consultation the council has ever done. We got 9000 responses. So quite a big chunk of our population. We did workshops in schools. And I think you have some footage of, of that. We spoke to children about what they want on their streets. We talked to, community groups about what they want, and overwhelmingly what they wanted were things that were either explicitly Catholic reduction or things that came from traffic reduction.

00:37:37:23 - 00:38:11:18
Cllr James McAsh
So the example there less pollution or, you know, some people might say more bike stories, or they might say wider pavements, or they might say more greening, more trees, more crossings, more to do to, for flood alleviation. All of these kinds of things which inevitably mean taking away space from cars. For these purposes, we don't have unlimited space, and that may feel such an important way of doing it, because we now have this wealth of data for every single street in our borough, of what it is that people want to happen.

00:38:11:18 - 00:38:19:02
Cllr James McAsh
That, and overwhelmingly, that's exactly what we saw from the beginning, is that people do want streets to be right.

00:38:19:06 - 00:38:54:06
John Simmerman
Yeah. When you do get that pushback, then you start to wonder is like, oh, did we miscalculate here? Do you have a strategy of of saying, okay, don't overreact, let's get it in. Let's give it a chance to to like, you know, percolate. Let's let's give people a chance to actually, feel there's any, any strategies for being able to weather that storm because it can be kind of challenging when the hatred starts heading towards your way and you're like, oh my gosh, you know, we miscalculated here.

00:38:54:09 - 00:39:02:04
John Simmerman
Do you try to stay firm or does it make sense to retrench and pull it out and try a different location?

00:39:02:06 - 00:39:28:08
Cllr James McAsh
So I think it's I mean, this is a maybe that the, you know, and so maybe it's kind of cheating, but I think it is a bit of both. I think because we're very discerning about what people are saying and what they actually mean by what they're saying. So if they are essentially saying that the one thing that I find quite interesting is we all say things like we always used to like traffic neighborhoods, which then means that the cycle route to school is very quick and very safe.

00:39:28:10 - 00:39:48:04
Cllr James McAsh
And the car school is now much longer. And you like people come to me and say, I used to drive my son to school in five minutes. Now it takes me 20 minutes. So you need to take this out and for me, the point there is they're not complaining about a bug in the system. They're complaining about the pointing system.

00:39:48:07 - 00:40:10:00
Cllr James McAsh
That's a feature. So the when it when it comes to concerns about that, we sort of do have to say, well, we disagree. That's not the purpose of this is to do what you're complaining about. And I'm sorry that you don't like that, but that is what we're actually going to do. And all humans have conflicting opinions, you know, that's very, very normal.

00:40:10:00 - 00:40:26:27
Cllr James McAsh
That's you know, people want legislation, but they may also want to start the car for you if we can't achieve this. So we we need to kind of make some of these decisions. So I don't believe that we should, you know, put everything to a referendum and then links to that is once people experience it that use change.

00:40:26:27 - 00:40:49:06
Cllr James McAsh
And that can be really hard to remember that in the midst of it when everyone's complaining about it. But one year, two years later, people will be happy with it. And it reminds me of that quote by Henry Ford where he says, if you ask the customers what they wanted, they would have said, a faster horse. And you know, and that's essentially been now, obviously people don't want to go back to having a horse do that.

00:40:49:08 - 00:41:20:19
Cllr James McAsh
So I think we just need to kind of have that vision and be willing to stick to how we do. Also, this is why I'm switching a bit. We do also need to take the consultation seriously, whether it's not about the principle scheme. So it's all points that hang on a minute, do you think, do you realize that what you're doing here means that actually now, this cycle crossing is quite unsafe then actually, it's really useful to take these things on board or indeed some of us work on these, not suggesting we need to be completely dogmatic about how you, particularly in terms of for businesses and the loading.

00:41:20:23 - 00:41:41:11
Cllr James McAsh
So I'm pretty sympathetic to business saying, hey, you know, my shop sells bathroom furniture in a sense, and toilets and so on. We do need people to be as modes outside the shop. Can you make sure the lighting bailer yeah, so I don't I don't need you to cycle with a dashboard in the back of that. Like that's that, that's fine.

00:41:41:13 - 00:42:05:04
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's it's really important I think for leaders around the world to understand that, that yes, this may not be popular with everybody, but learn what you can from the feedback. If things need to be tweaked a little bit, tweak them. Like you said, you know, if there's some dangerous little niggles that need to be addressed, address them.

00:42:05:12 - 00:42:28:13
John Simmerman
But for the most part, stand firm. You're doing this for good reasons because of those priorities that we were looking at earlier. It's like it's really important to make streets safer for all ages and all abilities, all modes. And so again, as we said earlier, it's not a war on cars, and it's not a war on car drivers.

00:42:28:13 - 00:42:50:15
John Simmerman
It's a battle that we're fighting towards car dependency. And that being the only viable way to get around. I want to play this little video is sort of like a little success story. It's it's of a child who's really excited about being able to walk to school. So let's, let's hit play on this and enjoy what we have to learn here.

00:42:50:17 - 00:43:15:07
Southwark Resident
My name is how hello. Walking to school is a family because then it gives us a nice chance to connect act instead of just walking to school on my own. We're really enjoy, doing things like spotting nature. I really like walking to school with help because we get to, have a good chat. We enjoy walking through the park.

00:43:15:07 - 00:43:37:26
Southwark Resident
It's a really nice way to start the day and finish the day to discuss what's coming up or what's kind of happened. Sometimes we might spend a little bit longer in the park after school. When the weather's nice, it's really nice to kind of hang out together sometimes, even with some of his friends. And it's a quick way to get to school without using a car.

00:43:37:28 - 00:44:06:17
John Simmerman
Gotta love it. And you know, and globally, I mean, this was normal. This is how kids got to school, you know, 40, 50, 60 years ago I mean, the majority of of children actually got to their schools by walking in some by biking in the United States has gotten just ridiculously bad in terms of the the low number of kids being even able to, to walk to school.

00:44:06:19 - 00:44:23:00
John Simmerman
And I think it's something that we've just lost touch with. And so this is like really, really wonderful when you can hear it from a child's, you know, perspective in, in their voice as to why this this matters. I mean, it gives us hope.

00:44:23:03 - 00:44:44:29
Cllr James McAsh
Absolutely. I think pretty much any child, given the choice between driving school or walking to school, which is walking to school, you know, I think often that's that part of the day is the opportunity they have to speak with their care, their parents. And, you know, obviously you can do that in a car, but it's a very different experience to be able to explore the world around you too, you know, reflects on the nature.

00:44:44:29 - 00:45:02:29
Cllr James McAsh
This is a nice park, starts for a little while to play on the swings, these kinds of things. I mean, these are absolute. I think what most children want to do, and it's kind of linked back to what you were saying about it's not a war on cars. I think most parents want to do that as well, and it's not a failure on their part.

00:45:02:29 - 00:45:17:29
Cllr James McAsh
That's, not doing that is a failure on our part. Collectively that we're not building a transport system, a society that makes that easy. We we've made it far too easy to drive. We made it far too difficult to do everything else. And that's what the challenge.

00:45:18:01 - 00:45:53:05
John Simmerman
And I think it's it's also worth, you know, emphasizing too, that, there's a great deal of fun that can be had, you know, for kids to be able to get out on bikes and get to meaningful destinations, you know, it could be with family to go out and do something enjoyable and pleasurable. That would be even considered more of a leisure or a leisure, you know, ride, but also being able to get some meaningful destinations, like to school or to a friend's house or or, you know, who knows, maybe on summer break, you know, a place where you can take a dip and go for a swim or have have some fun

00:45:53:05 - 00:46:14:03
John Simmerman
together. Talk a little bit about that, because I think it's really important to understand that a big part of what has changed in our car dependency mode that we have evolved into is we took a lot of freedom away from from children, of being able to roam within their communities.

00:46:14:05 - 00:46:41:02
Cllr James McAsh
Absolutely. I mean that a bike's open to opportunities for the places you can go so, so dramatically, but they are completely closed off the roads around you too and say it's like a long. So the approach that we've taken, you know, to that is, is twofold. Firstly, try and prove streets which we've talked about a lot. We do a huge amount of work with children directly, and we very much see that as being in the long term and most importantly, valuable approach.

00:46:41:03 - 00:47:07:18
Cllr James McAsh
So we provide training in schools so children feel confident on the roads. But the other thing we started doing was you think we're fairly unique in London is that we run workshops for fixing a bike as well. So what we found is often when for all, for people of all ages, especially children, if they're bike rides and they don't have the money to take it to a bike maintenance shop, which can often be quite expensive.

00:47:07:20 - 00:47:25:19
Cllr James McAsh
That's that's what at the ends of it, you know, they, they may not pick up their bike again for a very long time if others. So what we've found is that we go into schools and we partner up with a group of cyclists and go into schools and teach children how to fix a bike, how to do.

00:47:25:19 - 00:47:46:23
Cllr James McAsh
You know, I'm not saying it's too complicated stuff, but, you know, changing tires, fixing tires, some work around that via gears and brakes and that kind of thing. And what's really interesting about that is even the children, who don't cycle absolutely love it. So it's always it's not just about supporting the kids who really cycle to keep their bikes in good nick.

00:47:47:00 - 00:47:57:16
Cllr James McAsh
It actually is a way of getting other children interested in cycling as well. The needs of our cycle to be able to change your tire. But it's a very different experience. What they normally do in school.

00:47:57:18 - 00:48:15:10
John Simmerman
Yeah, yeah. Is there anything that we haven't discussed yet that you think the audience would really, really benefit from, from knowing about, you know, your borough and the streets for people, you know, movement and the initiatives that you guys are working on.

00:48:15:12 - 00:48:44:15
Cllr James McAsh
I guess the, the one thing that I would that I think is really important for us in the streets of people and actually really comes out particularly in our cycling plan with so 600 people, is this cycling specific bit? I think in the past we started from the position that we want to carve out little bits of the roads that are safe and appropriate for pedestrians and cyclists, and obviously that's basically not doing it at all.

00:48:44:17 - 00:49:03:26
Cllr James McAsh
But that is taking comes from the table. We should be looking at the whole take and example of that is in our cycling plan, the first draft of it. So we had a hierarchy of roads. So the ideal road is what's called a greenway. So essentially that's completely no, no traffic whatsoever. We don't really have many of those.

00:49:03:26 - 00:49:29:06
Cllr James McAsh
And so let's be honest. Second is the segregated cycle lane. So alongside the main road that just cycles only that is a cycleway on the carriageway. And then last is a shared shed with a major traffic. So that was kind of the, the hierarchy. And I say we kind of want to get to the top of adding these segregated spaces, and we then turn the completely upside down.

00:49:29:09 - 00:49:49:00
Cllr James McAsh
We said, actually, you know what what we're saying there is the best case scenario is we get our own little bit where it's safe to walk and cycle as the Abdoulaye rounds. Let's start by saying the best case scenario is you have access to the whole carriageway and traffic is so low and so slow that it's completely safe.

00:49:49:03 - 00:50:15:11
Cllr James McAsh
Only when you can't do that do you go to segregated cycleways and so on. Why don't we see? Obviously it's been very busy roads as necessary. And, you know, I'm very committed, serious micro lanes in this cases. But that is a last resort. The first resort is to take the traffic out, you know, remove the traffic as much as possible because that's the that's in terms of cost effectiveness and in terms of impact by far the best benefits pedestrians benefit cyclists, the benefits closing.

00:50:15:12 - 00:50:25:14
Cllr James McAsh
Do you want to to to play to that. And it's all the without having to put huge amounts of money into changing the street space.

00:50:25:16 - 00:50:51:02
John Simmerman
Yeah. And, you know, we've got the cycle network, up here on screen and off to the left here. And I really appreciate you, framing that the way that you did in terms of of identifying the fact that we have so much potential in these quiet, low traffic, low speed streets that typically don't show up on cycled networks.

00:50:51:02 - 00:51:17:28
John Simmerman
You know, it's like the cycle network map, you know, of a typical city is, oh, this is where we have our bike lanes. This is where we have our segregated and separated pathways and and routes. And then, you know, like we, you know, all of these delightful, quiet, low speed, connected, you know, potential all cycle routes are almost always, you know, even unidentified.

00:51:18:00 - 00:51:51:26
John Simmerman
And so I love it when cities are embracing the fact that, hey, these low traffic streets that, you know, have low motor vehicle speeds and, you know, can be traffic calm just a little bit, you know, maybe some traffic diversion here and there. And then these cut through is, you know, like we saw earlier, the mobility field modal filters of being able to get, you know, through just like the one pass the the little pub there, where you're able to get to the next level, you can't drive through there, but somebody on a bike can get there, somebody in a wheelchair can get through.

00:51:51:28 - 00:52:09:10
John Simmerman
And so it's really, really important to to lean into the fact that you can actually have safe routes for all ages and abilities to all destinations. When you start to embrace a broader, view of what is part of the cycle network.

00:52:09:12 - 00:52:26:23
Cllr James McAsh
Absolutely. And I think it also links to what kind of journeys are we talking about and for who. I think the kind of segregated cycle lanes are really great. If you're thinking about people commuting, for instance, you know, going from one place to another, they get to the main roads with down the main roads, off they go. And that's fine.

00:52:26:23 - 00:52:44:07
Cllr James McAsh
That that's good. That's obviously more likely to be men and women, more or less in certain ages. So, you know, very helpful for children. But actually it's those neighborhoods connections are on the small size trees. They're the things that connects you from your house to your primary school, which is great for your child, greatly for your mother.

00:52:44:11 - 00:53:05:07
Cllr James McAsh
It's the kind of the short walks that, older, people are going to be making when they kind of want to go shopping and so on. These, these are the, the, these are a much wider audience. So people want those kinds of routes. So let them kind of get around in their own streets as opposed to that kind of, you know, arterial routes along the main road.

00:53:05:10 - 00:53:27:15
John Simmerman
Fantastic. One of the other things that we've touched upon a couple of different times is that emphasis on trying to decrease the heat island effect and, and trying to integrate, maybe do some paving and bringing some greener, environments into the street space. Talk a little bit about, this particular initiative that you guys are working on here.

00:53:27:18 - 00:53:54:24
Cllr James McAsh
Yeah. So, I mean, I had since the probably an area that we should be doing more, I think this this sky's the limit, really, with this, we do have commitments to, as you can't remember the statistic off the top of my head because statistics to turn certain of highway space into grading of some kinds, that can either be the trees and, shrubbery, which helps to clean the, or in to affect the, the, the, the heat islands.

00:53:54:27 - 00:54:22:04
Cllr James McAsh
But also sustainable average since they were urban drainage systems as well, which dealing with the fact that in Suffolk, quite a huge proportion of, of our land mass is that flooding risk and the flood risk areas tend to also be to be the more disadvantaged areas, the lower income areas. So we've got to have that. Every time we do any of these schemes we will try to, to some extent add greening and also resistance.

00:54:22:06 - 00:54:50:12
John Simmerman
I love it, I love it. Yeah. I think that, you know, these types of initiatives really work hand in hand with, you know, being able to encourage more people to walk and bike to meaningful destinations because it all also goes hand in hand with creating more enjoyable environments. You know, if it I mean, if you're surrounded by, you know, some trees and, and you have less of that heat island effect, you know, happening there, it's like, oh, this is pleasant.

00:54:50:12 - 00:55:10:13
John Simmerman
I want to be here. It helps with the habit formation of getting people, you know, used to walking and biking to to places because it was comfortable while doing it. And, you know, who knows, maybe during the right season, maybe you're also smelling some great flowers and seeing some really cool stuff.

00:55:10:15 - 00:55:12:09
Cllr James McAsh
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:55:12:17 - 00:55:31:06
John Simmerman
Councilor James Nichols, thank you so very much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast. This has been so much fun. Hey, congratulations on all the success that you all are having. Keep up the good work and I look forward to visiting you in person, one of these days. Soon. Again, thank you so much for joining me on the Active Towns podcast.

00:55:31:08 - 00:55:31:29
Cllr James McAsh
Thank you so much.

00:55:32:04 - 00:55:49:01
John Simmerman
He thank you all so much for tuning in. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Councilor James MC Ash. And if you did, please give it a thumbs up. Leave a comment down below and share with a friend and if you haven't done so already, be honored to have you subscribe to the channel. Just click on the subscription button down below and ring that notification bell.

00:55:49:01 - 00:56:08:07
John Simmerman
And again, if you're enjoying this content here on the Active Towns Channel, please consider supporting my efforts by becoming an Active Towns Ambassador. Again, super easy to do. Just navigate over to Active towns.org. Click on sport tab at the top of the page and there's several different options you can make a donation to the nonprofit. You can leave me a tip right here on YouTube or down below.

00:56:08:10 - 00:56:31:28
John Simmerman
As well as, becoming an active town's Patreon supporter, the patrons do get access to all this video content early and ad free. Again, thank you so much for tuning in. I really do appreciate it. And until next time, that's John signing off by wishing you much activity, health and happiness. Cheers and a huge shout out to all my Active Towns ambassadors supporting the channel via YouTube.

00:56:31:28 - 00:56:41:13
John Simmerman
Super! Thanks! Buy me a coffee! Patreon. As well as making contributions to the nonprofit. I could not do this without you. Thank you all so very much.