Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

Cycling stalwarts recognised in New Year Honours List

Cyclox chair Dr Alison Hill made an MBE while Betty Philipson, President of City Road Club (Hull), receives British Empire Medal

The chair of Oxfordshire cycling campaign group Cyclox and the President of the City Road Club (Hull) have both been recognised in the New Year Honours List, published today.

Cyclox chair Dr Alison Hill (pictured above) has been awarded an MBE for services to cycling due to her campaigning efforts spanning almost two decades, including chairing the national cycle training provider Bikeability until stepping down from that role earlier this year.

The former public health doctor previously sat on the board of Cycling England from 2005 until it was abolished in 2011.

Dr Hill, who was hospitalised with a serious leg injury in October following a crash involving a coach as she rode her bike at Oxford’s notorious Plain roundabout, has been prominent in campaigning for safer roads in the city and the surrounding area following the deaths of three women while cycling during 2022, one at the same location where she was injured.

Reacting to being included on the New Year’s Honours List, she told BBC News Oxfordshire that her campaigning work “has been my life's passion for many years now.”

Dr Hill has previously been included on Cycling UK’s annual 100 Women In Cycling list.

Meanwhile Betty Philipson, President of City Road Club (Hull), has been awarded the British Empire Medal for services to cycling and the community in East Yorkshire.

Aged 92, she has been involved with the club since it was founded more than half a century ago in 1966, reports Hull Live.

“In my time at the club I've been a secretary, a time-keeper and now the president,” she said. “I'm not so good on my feet now but I'm still here. It was quite a shock but I feel honoured to get this medal. I have received Yorkshire awards before but you just don't expect something like this for yourself.

“I have managed to keep it quiet but the family members that know are very happy for me. I hopefully will be able to go to Buckingham Palace for the garden party,” she added.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

Add new comment

5 comments

Avatar
TheBillder | 3 weeks ago
2 likes

These are much better than awards such as to Mr Tim Wetherspoon for services to boozing, sticky carpets and the bank accounts of political loons, but I guess Dr Hill would swap it pretty quickly for some proper action on active travel.

Congratulations to both though - serious dedication to tasks that must often feel pretty thankless.

Avatar
stonojnr replied to TheBillder | 3 weeks ago
0 likes

The 662.7million pounds in tax Sir Tim's pubco pays, each year, provides you with funding for government active travel initiatives.

Active Travel England's operational 2023-24 budget was 7.5million.

Avatar
chrisonabike replied to stonojnr | 3 weeks ago
3 likes
stonojnr wrote:

The 662.7million pounds in tax Sir Tim's pubco pays, each year, provides you with funding for government active travel initiatives.

Active Travel England's operational 2023-24 budget was 7.5million.

It might... but as the numbers you quote show* - so would spare change and pocket lint from many business suits. I could be wrong but I don't suppose Sir Tim's business would voluntarily pay all that money if it wasn't the law. Although I guess plenty of others have found ways to not pay tax here. So perhaps there's that as "backing Britain"?

A possibly fairer way would be to ensure that motorists pay the full costs of motoring (eg. cover.the "externalities"). However that is extremely unlikely to be a policy of any foreseeable government!

Glad to see they've recognised Dr. Hill anyway, not that the annual gong fest interests me that much.

* Aside - what is important to us? Follow the money. Divide 7.5 million (you could even add in all the other "costs of cycling") by the population of England...

Avatar
TheBillder replied to stonojnr | 3 weeks ago
2 likes
stonojnr wrote:

The 662.7million pounds in tax Sir Tim's pubco pays, each year, provides you with funding for government active travel initiatives.

You can remove 142m of that as it's PAYE, which employees pay. Employers only collect it. And it's unclear how much of the 288m VAT is reclaimed.

It's still a lot of money, though I'd also be tempted to ask what we as a society pay as a result of alcohol abuse, alcohol-fuelled violence etc.

Look me in the eye and tell me Mr Tim* would have got his badge without a combined £450k going to Vote Leave and the Conservatives. He apparently did this without realising what he would get; LBC says

Quote:

The donation made Mr Martin part of the Conservative Leaders Group, giving him access to the-then prime minister and other senior Tories, including at dinners and lunches.

The Wetherspoons boss says he was unaware that such a donation would give him such access. Though having been made aware, he promised to bring 14 pints of Skol to the next one, and anyone buying 2 large glasses of Chateau Farage could have the rest of the bottle free.

Although I read now that he's thinking of voting Labour if they change tax rates to benefit his business. So he's as keen as anything to get that not-exactly-662.7 million down.

*I'm not all that keen on the aristocratic title. Up the workers!

Avatar
mark1a replied to TheBillder | 3 weeks ago
1 like

I haven't got much of an opinion on this (don't frequent pubs much, don't know Tim Martin either), and don't really have any political alignment one way or another, but it's worth pointing out that you can't just take one set of published unverified figures and make sweeping assumptions either without a little consideration.

TheBillder wrote:

You can remove 142m of that as it's PAYE, which employees pay. Employers only collect it. And it's unclear how much of the 288m VAT is reclaimed.

That's PAYE and NIC, so a good proportion (around a third IME) of that will be employer NIC, paid by the employer. So not the full £142m, but probably £40-50m. Regarding VAT, that's almost certainly taken from company VAT returns, which will be net, i.e. amount paid to HMRC with input tax already deducted.

TheBillder wrote:

Although I read now that he's thinking of voting Labour if they change tax rates to benefit his business. So he's as keen as anything to get that not-exactly-662.7 million down. *I'm not all that keen on the aristocratic title. Up the workers!

Perhaps he's happy to help out another man-of-the-people, fellow working class knight of the realm, Sir Keir Starmer?!?

 

Latest Comments