I work about 12 hours a week at my local ski slope (hangover from the student days – kept the job as I work from home and it gets lonely!).

About a year ago, the council who run the slope ran a very hush-hush cycle to work scheme trial. Ever since, we've been constantly promised that the scheme will be getting rolled out 'soon'.

Every other week, the 'fore-mentioned council spends thousands of taxpayers pounds printing up cr@ppy leafleats and free community magazines, a good deal of which are filled with diatribes exhorting us lazy s0ds to get off our @rses and onto a bike. All the usual health benefits are trotted out and usually there'll be a self-congratulatory piece about how they've installed two metres of cycle lane which ends at a bad junction. They make out that the council is 100% dedicated to improving fitness and health throughout the region.

Today I was told by a supervisor that the likelihood is that the scheme has been scrapped, "….because the system would only get abused by staff"!!!!!!

I am so peeved about this – has anyone here successfully harrassed or embarassed their employer to get the scheme set up?

I'm so ready to go to the press with this…….

Depends on your local press – our local press in Edinburgh is very anti bike so I would doubt it would be worth it – however why not give it a try?

Today I was told by a supervisor that the likelihood is that the scheme has been scrapped, "….because the system would only get abused by staff"!!!!!!

I'm so ready to go to the press with this…….

Your supervisor has a point though.

Might mean loss of job (I'm only on a PVH contract, so they have no obligation to give me shifts) which might not be a bad thing!

My supervisor just bought himself a Cindercone and we go riding together weekly 🙂

i hounded my hr for 3 years before they did it and i was the first in the brigade to sign up 😉 lots of bothering til in the end they gave in. they kept pushing the green thing on stations, turning lights off computers heating and such like . sharing lifts to work so i kept on about riding saving on people using cars at all and they caved in. i think they just got sick of me in the end.

only prob with ours is they are only letting 15 people a year do it and we have about 3000 staff ;-(

mick – good on you. Don't think I can wait three years though!! Also, this is a centre which still thinks nothing of disposing of sensitive documents by having a massive bonfire out back 😯 So the environmental argument is unlikely to cut much ice….

I wouldn't recommend going to the press, especially not since you've told us all about it and your profile has your name and location. Goodbye job 🙁

Why don't you approach it from the other side, i.e. getting the council to look at the positive sides of CTW, and using yourself as a guinea pig for a 'good news' piece in the local press about how supportive your employer is being?

Alasdair – I'm well aware that this is a public forum but someone would really have to have it in for me for this thread to get back to those who might care. Add to this that I'm mad as hell about the cancellation so really amn't that bothered.

In the way of councils, they'll have spent this last year pouring money into feasibility studies and so forth – I very much doubt anything but extreme public shaming would have any effect… It's just the massive hypocrisy that gets my goat.

user-removed, with your 12 hours a week and contract you'd probably not be eligible for CTW scheme anyway, so you'd have to ask yourself is it worth the bother?

I agree with your sentiments regarding local council leafleting propaganda though. I was instrumental in 'embarrasing' my employer into adopting the scheme by complaining discreetly to one of our elected councillors rather than our management (the HR department was dead against it}. I had to laugh at the PR gumpf sent out regarding the council's eventual take up of the scheme, apparently they were, (to paraphrase) a beacon to other public sector organisiations in adopting the CTW scheme Yeah right, on yer bike!