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Mailbox Birmingham to charge visitors on bicycles

Simon Baddeley | 16.10.2005 17:20 | Culture | Ecology | Birmingham

How come a place with the pretensions of the Mailbox in Birmingham can decide to do something so passė as to charge for people who visit their shops and restaurants on bicycles? There follows a list of the names of cyclists in vogue.

"Since it opened in December 2000, The Mailbox has given Birmingham a whole new social scene" Quote from Mailbox website 16 Oct 2005

"I work at a company based at the Mailbox. Just to inform you that as of November 1st, the Mailbox management will be charging for people to park both motorcycles and cycles in the bike park. Currently the plan is to charge members of the general public." E-mail from Mailbox employee 13 October 2005

I am a regular visitor to and customer of the different shops and eating places at the Mailbox plus the BBC, but I'm vexed at the news that Mailbox Management are deciding to charge for parking bicycles there. It seems a retrograde step and not one with which a place of the Mailbox’s prestige cycling is increasingly in vogue.

In London many ministers, academics, barristers, surgeons, senior civil servants and other establishment figures are navigating the city by bicycle, visiting clubs and restaurants and shops and not only not being charged for the presence of their bicycles but welcomed - yet Mailbox plans, from Nov 1, to charge cyclists for using a bike park.

Jeremy Paxman says cycling "... is easily the quickest way around, faster than bus, tube or taxi. You can predict precisely how long every journey will take, regardless of traffic jams, tube strikes or leaves on the line. It provides excellent exercise. It does not pollute the atmosphere. It does not clog up the streets." Vivienne Westwood regularly bicycles through the streets of London wearing a mad-looking pair of shoes from Balenciaga and Gilles Tapie's recent book of photographs of the dancer Sylvie Guillem shows she’s an urban cyclist. Eric Clapton collects and rides Italian road bikes while Bea Campbell wrote recently "In the context of debates about identity politics - are you gay or straight, nationalist or republican, British or English and so on - I would ask, 'Do you ride a bike?'" - yet the Mailbox wants to charge for bicycles.

Jeff Banks and Paul Smith are avid cyclists and Smith's business has sponsored cycle teams. We may yet see them design proper day clothes for cycling in the city. Sheryl Crow, Lance Armstrong's girlfriend, rode close to 70 miles at the recent Ride for the Roses and speaks of writing a song about cycling. Jon Bon Jovi is a mountain biker sponsoring an MTB team.

Alexei Sayle may write about cars but he commutes by bicycle and, with Jon Snow, is a customer of Condor Cycles along with Adam Woodyatt, Jill Halfpenny, Mick Jagger, and Chris Tarrant and wife who've bought a tandem. Treasury mandarin Sir Steve Robson always rode to work and still gets off road in the Sussex Downs sometimes - but the Birmingham Mailbox wants to charge for bicycles.

Boris Johnson MP cycles to and from Parliament and his office at the Spectator. The Prime Minister of Belgium, is a cyclist and a fan of cycle-sport. He said: "In politics, one can learn some things from cycling, such as how to have character and courage. Sometimes in politics there isn't enough of those things" - especially at the Mailbox

Lee Iacocca ("when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life") former boss at Ford and then GM, invented the SUV, repented and is now into electric bikes and rides his company's products. He said: "After 50 years in the auto business, I'm bringing you the future of transportation - and it's electric!" but the Mailbox wants to charge for bicycles.

Kraftwerk's 1980s Tour de France album is a classic and they do other bicycle things though they are a bit reclusive, which brings me back to my original point - isn't it a bit naff of the Mailbox to start charging for bicycles in the year 2005?

Finally I guess that Mailbox architect Ken Shuttleworth, with his strong environmental credentials and a member of the Commission for the Built Environment will take a disappointed view of Mailbox managers making life difficult for cyclists instead of welcoming them.

Simon Baddeley
- e-mail: s.j.baddeley@bham.ac.uk

Comments

Display the following 2 comments

  1. We should lobby & protest, as usual. — John Wesley Barker
  2. Interesting stuff — Tom Fenn
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