About Better Streets for Birmingham

Our mission

Better Streets for Birmingham campaigns for changes to our travel and planning infrastructure to improve the sustainability, efficiency and safety of our streets. By identifying, supporting and advocating for changes to our environment that enable car-free journeys, we aim to make active travel and public transport the default options for trips around our city.

Our vision

We believe in a Birmingham where children can play safely in residential streets, where people improve their physical and mental wellbeing through active travel and where our environment is not sullied by acres of public space given over to private vehicle usage. By connecting this city to make car-free travel the easiest option, we will make it a more pleasant place to work, live and play.

Our goals

Better Streets for Birmingham…

• advocates free bus travel for under-16s in Birmingham
• advocates protected cycle lanes along all major roads in the city
• supports school streets for every school in Birmingham where reasonably practicable
• supports existing low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) and advocates their continued rollout
• advocates preferential use of new non-hydrocarbon buses on the most congested routes
• supports car sharing schemes and advocates their expedited expansion
• advocates bus franchising for the West Midlands, supporting the ACORN Birmingham campaign for greater public control of bus services on which so many residents, particularly those from underserved communities, rely

Our constitution was adopted on 2 September 2024.

Our Structure

To achieve our goals, Better Streets for Birmingham is made up of free membership base which anybody can join online and a committee.

The committee sets the direction of the group and makes decisions about how it is run. Committee members are unpaid volunteers. Anyone can register interest in joining the committee by reaching out to a committee member.

There are 11 positions on the committee and roles last on a 1-year term basis. The most recent changes happened on Monday 29 April 2024. All roles next expire in March 2025.

Committee members

Role	Name
Chair	Matthew MacDonald
Vice chair	Tahmeena Suhail
Design lead	Sush Kelly
Secretary	Rachel Withey
Policy lead	Martin Price
Active travel champion	Esther Barnes
Social and website lead	Max Crawshaw
Outreach lead	Cath Palgrave
Campaign lead	Kirsten de Vos
Fundraising and finance lead	Aqeem Mirza and Kathryn Moss (role share)
Infrastructure lead	Paul Manzotti
Nextbase lead	Daniel Cooke

Committee meetings

Committee meetings are held on the last Monday of every month, with the final meeting in March being an Annual General Meeting. Meetings usually take place via Microsoft Teams.

Two non-committee members are welcome to join a committee meeting as an observer by contacting the organisation in advance.