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Sally Watson

@salawatson.bsky.social
4.7K followers 1.6K following 555 posts

Cities, cycling, planning and play. Often on a bike or in a museum. Co-host - activetravelcafe.org.uk Trustee - historictownstrust.uk

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Reposted by Sally Watson
UCU Edinburgh @ucuedinburgh.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Amazing turn out from students and staff at the University of Edinburgh, in protest at senior management's greed and manufactured cuts. This is what solidarity looks like - as our campaign of industrial action begins this coming week in protest at the cuts. www.ucuedinburgh.org.uk/blog/student...
ucuedinburgh.org.uk
900+ at inaugural Student & Staff Assembly! — UCU Edinburgh
More than 900 students and staff gathered for the inaugural Student-Staff Assembly on Thursday 24 September.
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Royal Historical Society @royalhistsoc.org · 26/09/2026
Our great thanks to Prof Glen O'Hara for his excellent RHS lecture yesterday evening: ‘In All Our Footsteps? Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land after the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act’ Recordings now available bit.ly/4ySyB6W #Skystorians @gsoh31.bsky.social 1/2
bit.ly
Glen O'Hara gives latest RHS lecture on 'Rights of Way and the Battle for the Land' - RHS
On Friday 25 September the Society hosted the latest lecture in its 2026 programme. Our great thanks to Professor Glen O'Hara (Oxford Brookes University) who spoke on: ‘In All Our Footsteps? Rights of...
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Jack Thurston @jackthurston.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Back when I wrote Lost Lanes North, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park was free to enter if you arrived by bike (or on foot or public transport). If you arrived by car, you had to pay a parking fee. Today, car parking is free, and all visitors pay the same entry fee.
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Plashing Vole @plashingvole.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Day 1 of teaching. I would have been running Round the Wrekin, an introductory module exploring the cultural history of the West Midlands across centuries and multiple media, plus academic skills. It’s been replaced by a generic skills module across multiple subjects to save money on staffing.
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LCC municipal @lccmunicipal.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
It's not the first time that @mikeyashworth.bsky.social has cost me money! I felt compelled to track down this lovely brochure celebrating Newcastle Civic Centre on his suggestion. This is the 2nd revision from 1972 - municipal opulence of the type you just don't get in the age of value engineering!
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Louise Platt @drluplatt.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
We would be grateful if people could take two mins to sign this petition re retaining legal rights of SEND children. The proposed reforms threaten the legal backstops parents have.
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Today was dropping the oldest at university. Feels like five minutes since I was pushing him round in a buggy and not much longer since my own first day at university (not that I can actually remember much about this - what did we eat? How did we wash clothes? No idea). No photos but here is Mars.
Model of the planet Mars - part of a solar system trail in York. Grass and trees in the background.
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Dr Cath Feely @cathfeely.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Last night, an exhibition I've been working on was launched at Cromford Mills in Derbyshire to mark 250 years since building of 2nd mill (blue print for cotton factories worldwide) and early industrial housing. It's open all weekend, with lots of activities. Critique my graphic design efforts!
Exhibition panels printed on cotton fabric hanging in pairs down a mill building from wooden ceiling beams. On the front panels the date 1776 and 'Why did cotton come to Cromford' are legible.
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Kieran - North East Heritage Library @neheritagelib.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
The High Level Bridge - I'd argue Tyneside's first visual marker into modernity. It's a pioneer too - the first bridge in the world to feature a twin deck for 2 separate modes, designed by 2 of the most brilliant minds Britain has ever borne. Free to read on Patreon!
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Lawrence Davies @andrenascotica.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
The campaign to build the zebra crossing that's now at the end of my street began in the early 1970s, and was finally installed in 2014.
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Liverpool University Press @livunipress.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
New Towns Mark One by the late Elain Harwood, ed. @alistairfair.bsky.social provides the first detailed architectural survey of the ‘mark one’ new towns. ➡️ Read the interview with Alistair about the book on the LUP blog: bit.ly/HE-NewTowns @c20society.bsky.social @geraintfranklin.bsky.social
A blue background of a blue and white tiled building fascia with a clock on a blue sky background. The text on the image reads 'Charting the architectural history of Britain's initial post-war new towns: the so-called 'mark one' new towns.
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Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵 @threadinburgh.scot · 15/09/2026
The council has these things down to a fine art. Yes you *could* have some basic road safety measures outside a school, but it's going to take you a huge amount of effort and your kids will almost be finished by the time a spade hits the ground, so are you sure you want to really bother?
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John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
Stealing Cars, Part II: Fordism and Flexible Enclosure
urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com
Stealing Cars: Fordism and Flexible Enclosure
Long Ride | Historian John Munro explains how the colonial logic that fueled the automotive industry led to a new concept of streets
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
“We have given up so much public space to cars, and if you live in a city with kids you live in constant fear that they will be hit by a passing vehicle”, Banchini said. “It restricts our movement so much that we almost can’t see it anymore.” www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
theguardian.com
Reclaiming the streets: the architects clawing back Europe’s car-centric spaces
The European Prize for Urban Public Space’s shortlist highlights projects helping people cope with climate crisis
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Lucy Pearson @lrpearson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Biking friends, I need advice. I have two old bikes (20-30 years old) which have been stored in my shed untouched for the last five years. I think they were both decent bikes new but nothing specialist. Is it likely to be worth renovating them or will it cost me more than just buying 2nd hand?
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Laura Tisdall @lauratisdall.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
New on the @histchild.bsky.social website, access a bibliography of works published in the history of childhood in the past c.15 years, and contribute yourself. Thanks so much to @karl-haohaozhang.bsky.social www.histchild.org/resources/co... #histchild #skystorians
histchild.org
Contribute to a history of childhood bibliography
Check out this working bibliography and add more resources yourself
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 26/08/2026
The history of play provision in Redheugh since the 1950s reflects changing ideas about play and children and an intermittent commitment to prioritising children. It’s seen playing fields, an adventure playground, fixed play equipment, this recent playground and now a forest school.
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Andy Arthur💃🏰⚓🦌 Threadinburgh 🧵 @threadinburgh.scot · 23/08/2026
In all seriousness, this is both a salient reminder as to why you shouldn't get too over-committed to digital history and also a good example of the complete shitshow that HES has had with its websites.
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The Curly Hair Project @curlyhairproject.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
#RoadSafety Project Update! We've created an app for #neurodivergent children and young people to log good and bad things they experience when out and about. Tell us what you like or dislike about your #journeys! Download the YEA Youth Engagement App from Google Play/Apple Store! #autism #adhd
thegirlwiththecurlyhair.co.uk
Road Safety App for Neurodivergent Children and Young People
Download our YEA app to log good and bad issues you experience on your journey to school or when out and about.
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Caroline Russell @carolinerussell.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Without seeing the proposed governance processes, have to ask if this is devolution on the cheap? The London Mayor has a London Plan sitting alongside the Local Plans of the 32 boroughs.
BBC News headline “mayors to get powers to overrule local councils on planning decisions” 

Image of brick homes being built, red tile and grey slate rooves rising above the surrounding scaffolding.
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John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 21/08/2026
Want to know more about skateboarding in Palestine? About cycling and empire? Join Dani Abulhawa and @ncardon.bsky.social on September 3rd for a fascinating conversation about Colonial Mobilities!
tickettailor.com
Select tickets – Colonial Mobilities in the US, UK, and Palestine – BRIG Cafe @ The Warehouse, 54-57 Allison St, Birmingham
Colonial Mobilities in the US, UK, and Palestine – BRIG Cafe @ The Warehouse, 54-57 Allison St, Birmingham, Thu 3 Sep 2026 - Colonial structures shape how we move, who gets to move and whose movement ...
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Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
The university rundown is very rapid, as well as being unplanned and chaotic. Okay, many academics over 60 and even say 57-58 can leave with a good payout, but you're losing a hell of a lot of knowledge and experience if you do that. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...
thetimes.com
Universities spend £400m on ‘golden goodbyes’ in a single year
The 60% increase shows how even top institutions are scrambling to deal with falling numbers of overseas students and stagnating domestic tuition fees
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Municipal Dreams @municipaldreams.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
The Brandon Estate, Southwark: London County Council's model mixed development estate of the late 1950s – bungalows for old people, two-storey houses and maisonettes for families and flats ranging in height from three storeys to the 18 storey tower blocks municipaldreams.substack.com/p/the-brando...
The six 18-storey point blocksFamily houses on Greig Terracenew build on Lorrimore Square. The wooden figure is the adapted remains of another artwork provided for the Estate – William Mitchell’s 14 ft totem pole originally equipped with chains for children to climb on
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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Road safety is a social justice issue. “The number of children killed or injured crossing roads is almost five times higher in England’s most deprived areas than its wealthiest” … and the gap is widening.
theguardian.com
Child pedestrian casualties are almost five times higher in England’s worst-off areas
Official figures expose widening gap in road deaths and injuries between poor and wealthy postcodes
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Ant Breach @antbreach.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
About a month until 8,000 volumes on British postwar planning and housing history gets pulped. Unless we can find someone to save it municipaldreams.substack.com/p/a-good-hom...
municipaldreams.substack.com
A Good Home Needed Urgently for One of the Most Significant Libraries of Housing and Planning in the Country
The trustees of the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum are disposing of its Harry Simpson Memorial Library in September, next month.
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
We need to show rightwing newspapers that actions have consequences. Add your name: goodlawproject.org/s/abb8a1
goodlawproject.org
Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project
Commission an immediate public inquiry into how to ensure a responsible press given its contribution to Dr Arday’s tragic death.
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 14/08/2026
When we were in Limburg in the Netherlands a few years ago we had to spend half a day in an ice cream parlour after an emergency alert on our phones and a siren in the village we were cycling through went off. Utterly terrifying but apparently quite normal there when there are chemical leaks.
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Claire Boardman @claireboardman.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
👀 Collections Trust (UK) CPD: Accountability for Born-Digital Collections Delivered by MDS "for people who already have a good understanding of the Spectrum procedures for physical objects, but want to better understand how to follow the standard for digital objects." tinyurl.com/4xjtz4dh
tinyurl.com
Accountability for born-digital collections - Collections Trust
This introductory session will look at the initial steps that can be taken to be accountable for digital items entering the museum’s care. It is designed for people who already have a good understandi...
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Dr Hannah J. Elizabeth @sexhistorian.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
We are looking for a fantastic person to join us at Strathclyde on a funded PhD studentship looking at the history of unorthodox health activism in the UK after 1948! www.strath.ac.uk/studywithus/... #AcademicSky #HistMed
static.klipy.com
Camp Summer2023: We're Hiring
ALT: Camp Summer2023: We're Hiring
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Dr. Elisabeth M. Yang @emyang.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Wonderful news! OSIRIS, vol. 41: Histories of Science and Childhoods is FINALLY out! The hope is that this is just initial steps, sparking further research into and engagement with the intricately interwoven worlds of the child and science. www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/osiris/2...
journals.uchicago.edu
Osiris | Vol 41, No null
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
On a campsite in France. A man is currently playing Viva España on the accordion. It’s like being back in the 1980s.
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Jon Agar @jonagar.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
As a historian of Jodrell Bank, I agree! And the reason it is important is that it has been made to mean different things to different people at different times. Who's up for a mega thread on how and why? (I'm off for lunch now, but I'll do it after. I'll need the energy...)
Cover of my book Science and Spectacle: the Work of Jodrell Bank in Post-war British Culture
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JenOnTheMove 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 @jenonthemove.com · 26/07/2026
We’ve got SO MUCH accessibility stuff to get angry about But it wears you down so much constantly facing barriers, we feel broken. Even the tiny barriers build up Like I haven’t even shared the shitshow of our trip to Wembley a few weeks ago
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Went to see the Tish Murtha and Kuba Ryniewicz exhibition at the Baltic yesterday. Tish Murtha’s anger at the injustice of life in a deindustrialising Tyneside is perfectly captured in photographs that record protest and everyday life. Well worth a visit.
Black and white photographs from Tish Murtha’s Youth Unemployment series. Quote in ‘his experiences since then have convinced him that he and others just like him will never be allowed to be anything more than a part of the growing reserves of a fully expendable cheap labour market.’B & W Photograph of protest against closure of the Scotswood works. Group of people with banners walking down Newgate Street in Newcastle with Coop building in background.Black and white photographs of workers and protests and copies of campaign bulletins for Scotswood Works closure.Photographs of families in Elswick in the late 1980s.
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
It has rained properly here for the first time in months. A pigeon is drinking water from a new pothole on our street.
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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
25 tonnes of nurdles, more than 1 billion nurdles, were spilled into the Tyne last week and are washing up on our beaches, north and south of the Tyne. Likely one of the largest ever plastic pollution events in the UK. There is remarkably little mention of this on here.
Guardian headline from Weds 22nd July reading:

“One billion plastic pellets spilled into River Tyne after two ships collide
Up to 25 tonnes of nurdles, the raw material for plastic manutacturing, have spread further than initially feared”

With an image of a beach covered in nurdles.
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Tim White @timwhite100.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
We now know a bit about what happens when the likes of private equity firms and REITs enter housing markets. But what about venture capitalists?  My recent paper ‘Hyperscaling housing’ has been published in the latest volume of IJURR (spoiler: it's not pretty):
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
HYPERSCALING HOUSING: Venture Capital, Real Estate Start‐Ups and the Race to Build a Global Residential Brand
What happens when venture capitalists try to reinvent housing in their own image? Synonymous with the rise of Big Tech, venture capitalists (VCs) are asset managers that invest in early-stage compani...
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Mark Williams @mrfw17thc.bsky.social · 20/03/2026
I have a 'History Department in UKHE' joke but it's been reduced from 250 characters to 50 and is now merged with jokes from across ten other largely-unrelated disciplines while still being expected to be Just As Funny.
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John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 20/07/2026
None of these measures will be effective. Meanwhile, Paris has made the streets in front of 300 schools permanently car free. Not all cities value the children of their communities equally.
bbc.co.uk
Six Birmingham schools set for new road safety measures
Roads near the schools are set for work such as speed humps and yellow lines to boost safety.
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Municipal Dreams @municipaldreams.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
🚨 New on Substack: Octavia Hill: ‘a life more noble’ - in which I grapple with the tension between Hill's huge contribution to better lives for many and her resolute opposition to state intervention and women's rights: municipaldreams.substack.com/p/octavia-hi...
municipaldreams.substack.com
Octavia Hill: ‘a life more noble’
A Life More Noble (Octavia, 2015)
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Laura Laker @lauralaker.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
New Rural Design Guidance aims to help councils deliver inter urban paths... but with little money for rural authorities, can it bridge the gap between hopes and reality? open.substack.com/pub/lauralak...
open.substack.com
Rural Design Guidance aims to help deliver interurban paths
Will it help tackle landowners and National Highways?
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
Fascinating to see the editor of the Newcastle Journal has started a petition to dual the A1. Purportedly for road safety reasons but then the usual speed, economy reasons are rolled out.
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Sally Watson @salawatson.bsky.social · 16/07/2026
It’s good to see some push back against the social media ban for under 16s. It’s been interesting to observe that it seems to only or at least mainly be young people themselves who are pointing out that we are changing what childhood is through this ban. www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
The social media ban sceptic: are we getting it wrong on kids, tech and mental health?
Psychologist Candice Odgers has studied adolescent mental health for 25 years. She fears the current debate around smartphones obscures some of the biggest issues facing teenagers – from the impact of...
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Stephen Frost @sfrost.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
“New pitches and leisure centres have value, but children also need ordinary places where movement does not require a booking system, a membership card or an adult with a free Saturday morning” Great write up of new campaign calling on Burnham to “… restore children’s freedom to play close to home”
sustainhealth.fit
The World Cup Inspires Them. Their Street Signs Stop Them
Campaigners urge Andy Burnham to ban no ball games signs and restore safe doorstep play for children across England.
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Cool Bike Art @coolbikeart1.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
Sure you've got your Count Binface, but when it comes to eccentric British candidates, retired Royal Navy officer Bill Boaks was a force to contend with. By all accounts Boaks was a terrible campaigner, but his single-minded dedication to the cause of road safety was a force to be reckoned with. 🧵
Photo of a man posing on a bicycle contained inside a box with street safety posters displayed on it.

Photo by Julian Brown, 1979,
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John Munro @johnmunro.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Why are car-centric transport systems so difficult to undo? Because automobiles represent the dominance of private property over public space. In this @urbancyclinginstitute.org essay, I look to history to uncover how we got here. #StealingCars
urbancyclinginstitute.substack.com
Stealing Cars: Property, Automobility, and the Colonial Crisis of Car Culture
Long Ride | Historian John Munro delves into the past in order to understand how the primacy of private property shapes mobility hierarchies in the present
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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
There was an awful lot of talk about place-based strategies but very little reflection on the spaces in which children and their families live, outside their homes, in their neighbourhoods, which are both shaped by poverty and shape experiences of poverty.
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Alison Stenning @alisonstenning.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
I spent the day at the NE Mayoral Strategic Authority’s summit to review and refresh the child poverty strategy one year after it launched. Lots of real achievements already, and some fabulous advocacy from NE Youth Alliance Peer Ambassadors.
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The Ranty Highwayman @rantyhighwayman.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
In the June edition of #Highways, I think about getting serious about #VisionZero, why the UK government's road safety strategy falls short and what if we included more than safety in the discussion. Digital issue available here: www.highwaysmagazine.co.uk/latest-issues
My article with a photo of a close up of a seat belt being clipped in.

Do let me know if you need a plain text version of the piece.
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