Sustainable Transport Climathon

Overview

In February 2025, NICRE delivered a sustainable transport Climathon at Seaton Delaval Hall in south Northumberland, in partnership with the National Trust.

The Climathon brought transport and leisure stakeholders together from across the North East of England to explore and develop solutions for sustainable, inclusive visitor transport.

The event emphasised the importance of collaboration across regions and sectors to provide transport options that are user-friendly and connected. It also highlighted the importance of accessibility and inclusivity, such as clear information being provided to transport users, and a need to address socioeconomic barriers to accessing leisure destinations.

The NICRE team have held several successful Climathon events nationally, adapting Climate KIC’s methodology for use in rural settings.

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Partners

The National Trust
Steven Morrison Cairns, NICRE Innovation Associate
This Climathon was registered with Climate KIC, a global knowledge and innovation community dedicated to advancing the transition towards zero-carbon, climate-resilient societies
The event was funded by NICRE.

Part 1 - the webinar

The webinar, which took place in the afternoon of 6 February, included a range of speakers from across the country with expertise in leisure destinations, visitor travel, and transport and mobility research:

Melanie Thompson-Glen, Head of Business and Innovation at NICRE, introduced the Climathon process and the aims for the session.
Nick Mason, National Trust, introduced the challenge of sustainable, inclusive visitor transport to leisure destinations in the North East.
Emma Thomas, National Trust, introduced Seaton Delaval Hall and the team’s current sustainable, active travel work, including visitor videos.
Loretta Jones, Good Journey, shared examples of last mile solutions from across the country that provide door-to-door options for visitors.
Dominic Hare, Blenheim Palace, presented their transport and sustainability initiatives towards net zero by 2027, including incentives, offsets, footpaths and a cycle route.
Lisa Wilkinson and Julie Wilson, Beamish Museum, shared their experiences of visitor transport on site and to the museum, and their current sustainability approach.
Dave Golightly, Future Mobility Team, presented the work of the interdisciplinary group and Newcastle University and contextualised transport as a complex systems problem with behavioural, technological and deployment challenges.

The webinar also included a breakout group session. In a previous Climathon webinar about Northumberland’s Coastal Streams, the breakout session took place mid-webinar, resulting in a more question-generating discussion. This time, to focus more strongly on solutions rather than questions, the breakout session was held after the external speakers had shared their experiences and examples.

This was successful, and participants offered a large number of ideas for inclusive, sustainable transport solutions in the North East. The ideas were noted in real-time by NICRE colleagues using the MIRO online tool. They were grouped into themes after the session.

Key themes included:

Collaboration
Last mile solutions
Improving existing transport, services and increasing their use
Access and opportunity

Solutions

Five teams, each focused on one thematic area chosen at the start of the day, worked together to develop detailed solutions. At the end of the event, solutions were presented to a panel, which provided feedback on their feasibility, potential impact, and next steps for development. Below are summaries of the five solutions presented.

Visitor experience transport solutions

A hub from Seaton Delaval railway station to local attractions, creating connectivity nodes with information points, extending to the coast, the metro, and key visitor attractions.

Accessibility and inclusivity standards for transport

A regional standard for accessibility and inclusivity in leisure travel, ensuring consistency in how the transportation options to, from, and around venues are communicated. The standard would be informed by user needs.

Collaboration between transport stakeholders and end users

Bringing all relevant stakeholders together with user groups in a coordinated regional initiative, offering incentives to promote sustainable travel and raise awareness of existing transport options.

Increasing visitor confidence through joined up information and routes

The project aimed to develop an integrated information platform for travel options, accessibility tools, and visitor attractions in a consistent format.

“Station to the Sluice” project

Improving connectivity between Seaton Delaval railway station and the coast at Seaton Sluice, addressing the last mile missing transport links.

Nick Mason, National Trust, said:

"Climathon imagining, planning and delivery with the NICRE team has been a joy, helping us begin an inclusive design journey with stakeholders that has potential to deliver significant outcomes."

Find out more

Scroll down for further information about this event and its preliminary work, or click the link below to find out more about the Climathon methodology. Further click the button below to watch the video on the day.

Further information about rural climathons Watch Video

Preliminary work

Seaton Delaval Hall visitor videos

Prior to the webinar, NICRE also visited Seaton Delaval Hall for a day to interview visitors about their transport choices and their opinions on how transport options could be improved. Current data shows that the majority of visitors across the UK access National Trust sites by car.

Seaton Delaval Hall visitors explained that their transport choices that day had resulted from:

Being unsure about alternative transport options
Public transport being inconvenient due to lengthy journey times
'Last mile' gaps - the distance between the nearest train station and the hall
Needing to travel by car in order to have suitable transport for the rest of the day, such as to collect children, walk the dog, and meet friends and family.

Those who did arrive by public transport were able to do so from Newcastle city centre, but most visitors from nearby areas such as Whitley Bay, travelled by car. Many of those interviewed considered cars to be a more reliable and convenient transport choice even for short journeys.

The in-person event

The in-person event, held on 10 February at Seaton Delaval Hall, focused on developing practical, innovative transport solutions through collaborative work. Participants were taken on a tour of Seaton Delaval Hall, which provided an understanding of its history and heritage, as well as some of its transport and access challenges. On their return to the Brewhouse Café, the venue for the Climathon, participants developed a list of ‘ground rules’, which focussed on ‘blue sky thinking’ and collaboration.

The event then entered the development phase. Participants in small groups were asked to discuss ideas and solutions to improve the offer and uptake of inclusive, sustainable visitor transport to leisure destinations in the North East. These ideas were captured on post-it notes and prioritised by the groups.

The top two priorities from each group were shared, and clustered into themes by the NICRE team. Participants then voted for the most important themes, providing a structure for further idea development. The themes chosen were: (1) Unbroken, safe, enjoyable routes for everybody, (2) Transport and the visitor experience, (3) Information, data and signage, (4) Collaboration and communication, (5) Accessibility and inclusivity.

Plans for the future

Participants developed a range of tangible, innovative, actionable solutions to enhance the offer and uptake of sustainable, inclusive visitor transport in the North East. Many of the teams developed clear solutions early in the Climathon process, before lunch. This is relatively unusual, and reflects the highly collaborative, conversational, and open environment created by participants throughout the day.

Across the teams, the solutions presented in this Climathon had overlapping themes, with a focus on collaboration, accessibility, and the provision of clear and standardised information. Participants described the benefits of meeting other local stakeholders, making connections and building new relationships that they planned to maintain after the event.

The next steps involve convening a reflection event with the National Trust, all participants, and wider stakeholders who could not attend the Climathon, to co-design next steps and decide a range of actions to take forward.

Natalie Partridge