Brightwayz was first launched in 2004 after founder Alison Holland set up a ‘walking bus’ scheme at her son’s school and realised there was a need for information and resources to support other walk to school schemes. This inspiration ignited a passion; Alison was determined to create solutions to help others.
The organisation and its excellent reputation has grown and Brightwayz (originally known as Brightkidz) now serves all ages. Alison and her dedicated team work locally (developing and trialing grassroots projects in their local North Northamptonshire) and UK-wide (supporting others who are working to make places better, reduce car dependency, improve public health and slash carbon emissions).
As a social enterprise, Brightwayz has a strong social and environmental mission; to promote safe, active, sustainable travel for everyday journeys for all. Thanks to the income earned from product sales and local consultancy services, Brightwayz are able to achieve their mission in a financially sustainable way, with 100% of profits ploughed back into the organisation. Brightwayz' ethos is making positive contributions to society, whether it be supporting one person or a large group, and changing lives for the better.
Brightwayz are passionate and dedicated about what, how and why they do things and want to motivate and support you to feel the same, and make a difference!
Alison’s day-to-day role is managing Projects and Partnerships. She is passionate about making our places safer, greener and cleaner and seeing more people walking, scooting and cycling. Alison firmly believes that cycling and walking are not just for leisure or sport but need to be embedded in everyday journeys to help create better places and better lifestyles for all.
Lance has been an integral part of Brightwayz right from the start. Day-to-day his main role is managing the Brand My Thingy range of general promotional products. Lance enjoys working with our corporate clients and many suppliers, with 100% of profits from the range ploughed back into the organisation to enable Brightwayz to develop more active travel information resources and projects.
Jacqui has been with Brightwayz from the early days and in 2021 became a director. Her day-to-day role is to manage Brightwayz sales and accounts. With a friendly voice at the end of the phone, our regular customers and suppliers have come to know her well. Her helpful nature means everyone will always be treated with the personal care and attention they require.
Andrea supports the growing number of local projects the Brightwayz team are involved in. She plays a key part in assisting our local clients and project partners in achieving their Modeshift STARS sustainable travel accreditation. As our own workplace travel plan lead she has helped us secure our own STARS Silver accreditation.
Lucy is an expert organiser for despatch of our Brightwayz products and helps ensure our customers’ orders arrive safely. Her role also involves creative marketing and design tasks. She also loves the chance to get out of the office too and take part in local projects the team are involved in.
Roman assists Lance on the Brand My Thingy side of the organisation and his area of expertise is in design and administration.
Dez was a keen advocate of active travel even before joining the Brightwayz team. He helps with project delivery, organisation and support. Dez loves working at Brightwayz as he commutes to work on his bike through his beloved Weekley Hall Wood.
Wesley has many years’ experience working with young people and teaching cycle mechanic skills. He provides our cycle mechanic services for many of our local active travel projects with partners such as Cycling UK’s Big Bike Revival - delivering ‘Learn to Fix’ and ‘Cycle Service’ activities as well as supporting us with running our local Kettering Active Travel Hub.
Polly recently joined the Brightwayz team and has so far undertaken training to become a qualified Bikeability trainer. She loves her pale blue electric bike with a basket and rides it everywhere.
Rick’s speciality is printing waistcoats, bags, banners and more with our customers’ logos or campaign messages to make them as engaging as possible. He has a strong eye for detail and really is a perfectionist. As a long-time member of the Brightwayz team Rick’s technical expertise is much-valued.
Fiona has masses of practical insight in the face-to-face projects we run and supports Brightwayz with our news and blog content. She is an experienced secondary school teacher and has also worked in the active travel sector.
Richard is a qualified transport planner and has over 20 years of experience developing transport plans and Local Cycling and Walking Infrastructure Plans (LCWIPs). He works closely in collaboration with Brightwayz on local authority projects and his high level of technical knowledge and skill complements the Brightwayz offering of engagement resources and techniques.
Julia helps out with our marketing campaigns and events from time to time. Previously she was also one of our two Social Enterprise Ambassadors for our North Northants Social Enterprise network arm which involved meeting other local social enterprises and creating video content for them.