By Harry Mottram: I caught up with Bath’s best known cycling Green Councillor Saskia Heijtjes last month at Gay Street’s Daisy and Bean Cafe to hear about her background and of course bicycles.
Married to lecturer Willem with two children and a cargo bicycle she explained how difficult it is to cycle when you have a family.
“It’s easy for me to cycle on a busy road as I am a confident cyclist,” she said, “but I can see some people find it scary which I get as I get abuse on a daily basis when I’m cycling. It’s mostly shouting – but because I can’t hear them properly I don’t know if it’s nice or not!”
Originally from a village in the Netherlands, after completing her education she moved to Paris with Willem for work and then to Edinburgh where he did a Phd before settling in Bath where they both worked at the University – Saskia holding a number of posts for eight years before taking her current role as content editor for Cycle Sprog. Last year she was elected as the Green Party Councillor for Lambridge – ousting the Lib Dem’s Rob Appleyard.
She is passionate about preventing Lidl developing a green fields site off London Road, would like to see trams return to the city and has worked with other parties in the council passing the first ever Green Party Motion on Vision Zero.
It’s a target set by the Council to end road deaths by essentially putting road safety on the agenda of every decision affecting roads by implementing something called LTN1/20 which affects the way new roads, cycle paths and pavements are built by working with all relevant agencies.
Saskia works for the Cycle Sprog website which is all about cycling with children and families – seemingly the perfect fit for the city’s first Bicycle Mayor of Bath.
There is more on Saskia at https://democracy.bathnes.gov.uk/mgUserInfo.aspx?UID=7573
Cycle Sprog: https://www.cyclesprog.co.uk/
Are you a councillor who would like to be interviewed or a key figure in Bath trying to make a difference? Email the editor at news@bathvoice.co.uk
Bath Voice Monthly Newspaper is distributed free to thousands of homes and some supermarkets – distributed from the first of the month. Harry Mottram is the News Editor
Email him at news@bathvoice.co.uk Bath website: https://bathvoice.co.uk/news/
Bath Facebook: https://tinyurl.com/bdtf2kep Also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bath_voice Read the newspaper online at :https://issuu.com/bathvoice To advertise to thousands of Bathonians call Erica on 07402 441485 or email her on erica@bathvoice.co.uk