Transport Action Network was set up in 2019 and is run by six people with a wealth of experience.
OUR PURPOSE is to help communities press for better (and more sustainable) transport. We support more investment in bus and rail services and active travel. To enable this and better roads maintenance (fewer potholes) we continue to oppose the previous government's damaging roads programme. We also support better integration between transport and planning.
Please get in touch if you would like some help (we can't run your campaign for you unfortunately) or if you would like to network with other like minded people and organisations. All our services are free to local campaigners.
Note: we mostly work in England and Wales.
If you would like to support our work, please consider donating.
Founder & Director
Chris Todd
Chris has been a campaigner for over 30 years, in both paid and unpaid roles. He first became active with his local Friends of the Earth group, while working at a recycling co-operative and studying for a Post Graduate Diploma in Environmental Impact Assessment.
In the 1990s he helped coordinate South Coast Against Roadbuilding (SCAR), an alliance of groups opposing the proposed Folkestone to Honiton trunk road. In 1995 he started campaigning for a South Downs National Park, later working for the South Downs Campaign, a network of over 160 organisations. The National Park was successfully achieved in 2010.
He was heavily involved in representing the community and voluntary sector and chaired the partnership bidding for the area around Brighton to become a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. This was successfully achieved in 2014 (the first in the UK for over 40 years). From 2014 - 2019 he was employed by Campaign for Better Transport to support local groups fighting roads and bus cuts.
Roads & Climate Campaigner
Rebecca Lush
Rebecca is a life-long environmental campaigner, specialising in transport. She became involved when Twyford Down was bulldozed for the M3 motorway in 1992, near where she grew up.
She played a leading part in this campaign, and many of the prominent campaigns against roadbuilding in the 1990s, including the Newbury Bypass campaign. She attended the first UN COP climate talks in Berlin in 1995, taking part in the first youth protests about the lack of progress in tackling rising carbon emissions. She established Road Block in 2005, an alliance of community groups against the new roads programme, and in 2007 became the first Roads and Climate Campaigner for Campaign for Better Transport.
She had a brief interlude from 2012, working for Lush managing their charitable giving, but has now returned to her original passion, supporting local communities campaigning on transport issues.
Welsh Roads & Climate Campaigner
Rhian Nowell-Phillips
Rhian has a background in policy, public affairs and campaigning which started with a passion for sustainable food and farming.
Her work on farming and rural affairs, included sitting on two Ministerial working groups. In addition, she was involved in campaigning for services in rural communities, particularly access to better public transport and ensuring any new legislation was rural proofed to recognise the often fragmented and peripheral nature of rural Wales.
Rhian has also spent time with a health charity, campaigning for those with sight loss, working with a range of organisations and the Welsh Government to ensure that public transport is accessible and inclusive to those with disabilities. Her role also included lobbying local authorities on accessibility issues such as pavement parking and other pedestrian obstacles.
Communications Officer
Nisha Kotecha
Nisha has worked in digital communications for more than seven years, supporting both businesses and charities to increase awareness of their work.
In 2014, she created Good News Shared, a platform highlighting uplifting charitable stories from around the world. She has created a guided positivity journal, and is currently co-facilitator of her local Action for Happiness ‘10 Keys to Happier Living’ group.
As someone who has never owned a car and so always relies on public transport, she is interested in ways we can improve our transport systems in the UK. Having previously worked for an older people’s charity, and as a member of the Women’s Institute, she is aware of how crucial bus services are to older people and those living in rural areas.
Traffic Reduction Campaigner
Ed Lamb
Ed brings his media and digital skills to the world of sustainable transport campaigning. Living with his wife and two kids in Wirral, Merseyside, he has worked for many years with local businesses helping them with web and graphic design, photography and email marketing.
In his spare time, Ed has been working hard for local change. After returning to cycling in his early 30s, and particularly after witnessing the horror of the car-filled school run, he started to campaign hard for change. He has worked closely with Merseyside Cycling Campaign and Wirral Pedestrians Association as well as getting involved with his local authority in shaping new schemes.
In 2018 Ed setup Rethink Now CIC. He and colleagues have worked on air quality testing projects, carbon literacy training and an annual family cycling event attended by hundreds of local citizens.
Traffic Reduction Campaigner
Roger Geffen
Roger’s involvement in transport campaigning began as a volunteer with the London Cycling Campaign (LCC) in the late 1980s. He went on to take active roles in various transport and environment groups ranging from CPRE, Campaign for Better Transport, Alarm UK (the anti-road building alliance) and various anti-road campaigns, notably the M11 Link Road in east London in the 1990s.
With the subsequent shift in national transport policy, he took a masters in Transport at London University and began working for Oxfordshire County Council on walking, cycling and local transport policies.
After a spell with consultants Steer Davies Gleave, he joined Cycling UK as Campaigns & Policy Manager (now Policy Director) in 2002.
He was awarded an MBE for services to cycling in 2015.
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