John Lauder was born in Coldstream, Berwickshire where the walking and cycling habit took hold. After working in school, academic and national libraries he took a change of career and joined Sustrans Scotland in 2005.
Since then the organisation has grown substantially, both operationally and in terms of the role it plays nationally. Sustrans mission is to enable people to travel by foot, bicycle or public transport for more of the journeys they make every day. Sustrans Scotland has a staff of 64 and an annual budget of £25m.
John is a regular contributor to policy development, a frequent attendee at Holyrood committees and commentator in the Scottish media.
Sustrans Scotland works in many ways: it helps create public space for pedestrians and cyclists by managing funds for Transport Scotland and distributing them through partnership infrastructure projects with local authorities and other stakeholders. It continues to develop the National Cycle Network in Scotland, which is currently 2,000 miles long and carries over 103m trips annually. Sustrans also works directly with people of all ages to help choose to walk and cycle more frequently for short trips through smarter choices projects and community-led street design. In addition, Sustrans aims to influence government policy and deliver innovative and imaginative projects, all aimed at allowing people to live active lives.
Sustrans Scotland’s best known projects are the award winning Street Design initiative, Community Links, which delivers partnership infrastructure projects across Scotland, I-Bike, which works in schools and the National Cycle Network.
Sustrans Scotland is a devolved office of Sustrans UK, which is the UK’s leading sustainable transport charity, encouraging people to travel in ways that benefit their health and environment. Sustrans has 2,000 supporters in Scotland and over 500 Volunteers, people who give up their spare time to assist us in our work. Sustrans’ principal objectives are to help reduce carbon emissions and to tackle health issues by enabling people to choose to travel actively every day.
Sustrans Scotland
Theme: Safeguarding the Heritage of our Waterways