Grimshaw still on the trail to make Britain a cycling nation

Ten years ago John Grimshaw quit as chief executive of active travel charity Sustrans, a position he’d held since 1984. Yet, as Geoff Dudley finds out, that didn’t mark the end of his efforts to develop networks of cycling and walking paths. Today he’s as busy as ever – and just wishes ministers would back his network to parallel HS2

Geoff Dudley

13 April 2018

John Grimshaw

Enjoying the Brean Down Way near Weston-super-Mare, which opened last summer

For over 40 years John Grimshaw has been at the forefront of the drive to create cycling and walking routes in the UK. From acting as designer of the Bristol-Bath path in the early 1980s, Grimshaw became chief executive of the active travel charity Sustrans from its inception in 1984, and oversaw the creation of the National Cycle Network that now extends to over 14,000 miles. Since leaving Sustrans in 2008, he has continued to work on implementing a range of off-road cycling and walking paths,...