Local businesses in Bury St Edmunds attended the Local Links award ceremony on Wednesday to celebrate the achievements of organisations who have been promoting sustainable travel amongst their employees.

Local businesses in Bury St Edmunds attended the Local Links award ceremony on Wednesday to celebrate the achievements of organisations who have been promoting sustainable travel amongst their employees.

The ceremony, at the Athenaeum, concluded two years of the Bury Local Links programme – a Suffolk County Council initiative which has been working with businesses in Bury St Edmunds to promote walking, cycling, public transport and car sharing as alternatives to single occupancy car use.

Each participating business was required to develop and implement a Sustainable Travel Action Plan to facilitate this behaviour change among staff.

Gold Awards were given to Abbeycroft Leisure, Burnett Barker Solicitors, Denny Bros, Infusions Ltd, Treatt and West Suffolk Hospital, who went above and beyond the call of the scheme by introducing innovative methods to encourage employees to move away from single occupancy car use for work travel. In total, 21 organisations received awards to recognise their efforts to encourage sustainable travel throughout their organisation.

Thomas Fleming, project manager for the Bury Local Links initiative said: “It has been great to celebrate the success of the business community in Bury in working to promote sustainable travel over the past 2 years. It feels like we’ve come a long way. Bury is a town that suffers particularly from congestion and we are delighted to have been able to engage with businesses to make alternative forms of travel more viable options for staff”.

Councillor Mary Evans, cabinet member for Highways, Transport and Rural Affairs said: “Sustainable travel is an important issue for all areas of Suffolk, with congestion in Suffolk is expected to cost our local economy £146.6 million per year by 2021.

“It is fantastic to see businesses in Bury St Edmunds leading by example and encouraging their employees to move away from single occupancy car use for traveling to and from work. It is a testament to the success of schemes like the Bury Local Links programme.”