Speaker biographies

Brian Deegan is the Director of Inspections at Active Travel England.

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Brian is one of the UK’s leading experts in active travel design and helped write the ‘Cycling Level of Service’ and ‘Healthy Street Check for Designers’, as well as co-authoring ‘London Cycling Design Standards’ and the ‘EU Cycling Strategy’.

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He is currently heading a team of inspectors ensuring design quality on several billion pounds of government investment in active travel infrastructure.

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The Director of Inspections works with local authorities to design high-quality active travel schemes.

Diego Davila is responsible for International Markets at ZICLA and has worked as a Project Manager for 7 years in different sectors. At ZICLA, he has worked with different cities worldwide, from Canada to Azerbaijan, to support them through all of their projects: from studying the project to preparing technical and economic analysis. ZICLA, represented by Pittman® in the UK have been working since 2005 to make city streets more accessible, sustainable, inclusive, and friendly.

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Rachel Beesley is a Senior Transport Planner at Transport for Greater Manchester.

She has worked in Transport for over15 years, including a year with ARRB in Melbourne, Australia.

Rachel’s primary focus is active travel appraisal. She undertakes appraisals for TfGM led schemes and supports GM districts to produce their own appraisals. She has combined existing active mode appraisal tools into one user friendly tool to allow quick and proportionate appraisal of active travel schemes.

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Florian Langstraat is a Principal Transport Planner at Mott MacDonald. Based in Manchester, he is currently the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) lead for Mott MacDonald’s UK Transportation sector. Florian’s expertise sits at the interface of geospatial analysis, sustainable transport and active travel, and he is passionate about using spatial data, maps and apps to drive better transport planning decisions.

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Hassan is currently Active Travel Lead at HS2, where he is leading on the planning, development, and delivery of active travel infrastructure across the HS2 project. He has a wealth of experience in the transport sector, having previously worked at Active Travel England.

Prior to ATE, Hassan led on the delivery of the LTN, school streets, and town centres programme and helped TfL formulate London’s 25 year Capital Plan. He also initiated and led the liveable neighbourhoods programme in London.

Hassan is a chartered engineer and a fellow of the Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT).

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Anne is passionate about ensuring active travel investment is informed by the best available insight, and making sure we measure the right things in the right way to inform decision-making, strategy and policy on active travel. How does spending on active travel change travel behaviour, perceptions and safety? And how do we measure this? These are some of the core questions Anne focuses on in her role as Cycling & Walking Evaluation Officer at TfGM. 

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Dave Stevens is a Project Manager at TfGM with 20 years of experience delivering award winning active travel projects.

When he’s not reorganising Greater Manchester’s kerbs in an attempt to prevent catastrophic climate change, regenerate urban areas and tackle obesity, Dave can be found in Bradford: DJ-ing on local community radio, coaching Kids at Saturday Bike Club, cycling, and organising Bradford’s top secret “Poetry Club” in amazing spaces in the UK’s City of Culture 2025.

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Stephen Edwards is Chief Executive of Living Streets, the UK charity for everyday walking. He joined Living Streets as Director of Policy and Communications in December 2018, becoming Chief Executive, becoming CEO in June 2021. Prior to this, Stephen was Deputy Managing Partner at a public relations consultancy, with a particular focus on transport, the environment and technology.

Outside of work, Stephen is Chair of Governors at a North London Primary School and a trustee and volunteer in local charities.

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“Mike is a ward councillor for Eccles and the Lead Member for Planning, Transport and Sustainable Development for the Planning Authority in Salford, which was awarded Planning Authority of the Year by the Royal Town Planning Institute at the RTPI Planning Excellence awards in December 2022.  He Chairs the Salford Bee Network Committee and represents Salford on the GM Bee Network Committee.  He chairs the Salford Flood Forum and the Salford Climate Action Board.”

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Ashley Newnham is a Principal Engineer at WSP, and Fellow of the Institute of Highways Engineers, based in Liverpool. With over 20 years’ experience in varying highways disciplines, he specialises in traffic signal design through concept, preliminary and detailed design as well as the commissioning of new sites and the modification, validation, and optimisation of existing sites. Aside from this he also sits on the committee that sets guidance and standards for passively safe structures.

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Mandie Shilton Godwin is a Labour and Co-op Councillor for Chorlton Park ward in Manchester. She has held a backbench role as the Lead Member for Active Travel in Manchester for nine years, and since 2022 has been the Chair of Manchester’s Environment, Climate Change and Neighbourhood Scrutiny Committee.

A lifetime walker and cyclist herself both for utility and leisure – and always for joy! - and encouraged other people to do the same. Now a grandmother of six, she encourages her grandchildren to use their bikes but worries enormously about increased road danger for children and more vulnerable adults.

Mandie spent her professional career working as a senior level manager in the voluntary and community sector but now concentrates entirely on her councillor, community and family responsibilities

Jim Walker founded Walk21 in the year 2000 and has, for more than 20 years, championed a global network to develop research, projects and policies so that people can walk in safe, attractive and accessible environments. He previously ran Walk England, the Walk4Life campaign, the Walk London project and chaired the Active Travel Advisory Group during the Olympics in the UK.

Jim has since worked in more than 100 countries and is currently helping develop an Active Mobility plan for Africa and a Walking Masterplan for the pan-European region.

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Dan is a Founder and CEO of Slow Ways.

A grassroots initiative to create a national walking and wheeling network that connects all of Britain's towns, cities and national parks.

Slow Ways aims to improve health, connect communities, reduce emissions and spread joy - all through the power of walking.

Dan is a National Geographic Explorer, has walked across all of Britain's national parks and cities while wearing a mind-reading device and founded London National Park City. @DanRavenEllison @SlowWaysUK #SlowWays

Kay Inckle is Campaigns and Policy Manager for Wheels for Wellbeing.

A disabled people’s cycling organisation who campaign for equitable access to cycling, active travel and multi-modal journeys for disabled people.

She is a social scientist with expertise in intersectional and social justice approaches to mental health and disability and has published widely in these areas including research with disabled cyclists. She is also an independent board member of the National Centre for Accessible Transport and a strategic advisor to LOUD Mobility.

Ben Plowden is a Senior Associate in the Transport team at PA Consulting. 

Prior to joining PA, Ben worked for Transport for London in a number of senior roles, including programme sponsor for Surface Transport’s multi-billion pound investment programme, founding Director of the Smarter Travel Unit, MD of Corporate Communications and Director of Borough Partnerships.  Prior to TfL, Ben was a leading environmental campaigner, including being the founding Chief Executive of the national charity Living Streets and Senior Campaigner on Energy and Natural Resources at the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England.    

  He is a Visiting Professor at UCL and Chair of the Transport Planning Society.

Dom Smith is Technical Lead for Active Travel Infrastructure at TfGM. His team plans the future delivery of the active travel elements of Greater Manchester’s Bee Network, and ensures that current infrastructure programmes are built to appropriate local and national design standards. Having held his current post since 2015, he’s been present throughout the Bee Network revolution in Greater Manchester, and is playing a leading role in the realisation of that vision for active travel.

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Having spent most of his career providing services to the commercial property sector in the UK, David set up SVL Services 5 years ago. SVL is a small agency based in Manchester, which specialises in using emerging technologies in the air and on the ground to provide data and insights into vehicular and pedestrian movements through public spaces, by analysing aerial and CCTV video footage.

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Oli Davey is a street design engineer and co-founder at Urban Movement, helping to addres some of societies biggest challenges through the design and planning of award-winning streets and public spaces. He works closely with local authority Officers and elected Members, who are often struggling to turn ambitious policy into tangible projects. This is achieved through the development of evidence-led, compelling narratives and designs that the whole Council can get behind, reassuring nervous councillors, unconvinced colleagues and sceptical stakeholders, such that they have the confidence to champion change.

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Irene McAleese is Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at See.Sense, an award-winning cycling technology and data company, on a mission to make cycling and micromobility safer and smarter. Irene is also a Department of Business and Trade ‘Export Champion’, a Diversity Board Adviser to the UK Bicycle Association, and an Ambassador to the Women in Cycling Network .

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:Alex is a Senior Consultant based in AECOM’s Bristol Transport Planning team, working across a broad range of multi-modal projects from strategy development, modelling and appraisal through to monitoring and evaluation. His latest micromobility work in the West of England has involved him supporting the operations and development of the e-scooter trial as it has evolved into the Integrated Micromobility Service, with roles in leading on user experience and evaluation activities.

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