Labour Government Promises Unprecedented Levels of Funding for Cycling and Walking

The new Labour government is planning to allocate ‘unprecedented levels of funding’ to walking and cycling.

The information comes from a Laura Laker article in the Guardian today. Laker and Chris Boardman recently met Secretary of State for Transport Louise Haigh at the Trans Pennine Trail.

Haigh is framing the proposed investment in terms of public health and climate.

Public Health and Climate

Louise Haigh said that a national network of safe cycle routes could cut GP appointments by helping people incorporate more physical activity into their lives.

Cycle routes are also essential to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

‘We’re in a climate crisis, we’re in a public health crisis. Getting people walking and cycling and moving more are essential to solving both of those in the immediate term and in the long term.

There’s lots of evidence to show that will reduce the number of GP appointments by hundreds of thousands, if not millions, a year.

[Transport] has knock-on effects everywhere else. It gets people healthier, it reduces the burden on the NHS because people are living healthier lives for longer’.

National Integrated Transport Strategy

Cycling is to be an essential part of the government’s National Integrated Transport Strategy.

The Strategy will include long-term funding settlements. This should improve the consistency of walking and cycling routes, including the National Cycle Network.

‘We absolutely want to make sure that we invest at unprecedented levels. We just want to make sure that the funding is delivered where it is needed, rather than where they’ve got the best bid writers, and where they’ve been good at hoovering up resources’.

The government is carrying out an internal review of transport infrastructure projects, including £16bn of trunk roads which are low value for money (BCR of less than 1).

The objective is to make sure money is spent so as to get the best return.

Sustrans wants to be involved in upgrading the National Cycle Network. Its Chief Executive Xavier Brice said that the charity is ready to work with the government, Mayors and local councils. He added:

‘Safe, accessible and consistent walking, wheeling and cycling routes will free people up to choose how they travel rather than feeling locked into expensive car use that many can’t afford to access jobs, education or everyday journeys such as nipping to the shops’.

The government also plans to develop a new road safety strategy for England. The last one lapsed in 2019.

Streets Ahead Podcast

Audio of the interview is available on the Streets Ahead podcast.

Here are some quotes and comments to add to Laura Laker’s Guardian article.

Funding for Cycling

‘We have 5-year control periods for Network Rail, for precisely the reason that they can plan, and they can have pipelines of schemes, and they can give certainty to the supply chain.

We have 5-year control periods for the Roads Investment Strategy, and we want to be in that space for everything else as well, because otherwise you get this stop-start all the time [where] cycle lanes and active travel work isn’t properly joined up, everything’s more expensive because you’re having to stand up supply chains and then drop them again, you’re having to rely on contractors rather than employ the people that you need, so it’s just lose-lose-lose at the moment.

So we want to get into those multi-year funding settlements to give authorities the space to plan, and actually think through the schemes that work for them’.

A proper review of transport infrastructure schemes is under way. Haigh avoided saying that £16bn-worth of low-value trunk road projects would be cancelled.

Government Body in Charge of National Cycle Network

There was about whether a government body should be in charge of the NCN, rather than the charity Sustrans.

Louise Haigh said ‘that’s something we need to look at’, but there was no commitment to doing so. She did say it is an anomaly that a charity runs national cycling infrastructure.

Culture Wars

‘The previous government…stoked really horrific culture wars that had real-life implications both for the deliverability of schemes [and for local authority officers working on active travel schemes]. That’s what we’re absolutely determined to end.

We’re not pitting road users against each other, or people against each other, no one is just a pedestrian or just a cyclist or just a driver, nearly everyone is all those things, and we need to make sure that all our transport networks work for everyone’.

While the previous government did some good work on active travel early on, they changed tack and stopped giving councils ‘air cover’,

Indeed the government started actively working against local authorities, saying ‘no, you’re not allowed to roll out 20mph zones, no you’re not allowed to roll out LTNs. Those kind of decisions should absolutely be made at a local level by communities, and not dictated to or stoked up by the centre’.

‘Local authorities will have my full support to roll out schemes. It all has to be done with communities, absolutely, and the worst thing you can do is put the wrong schemes in, because it then erodes that support, and they can be unsafe in some circumstances.

That’s why the work of Active Travel England is so important.

It will need to be properly funded, and we’ll look at that through the budget, but all local authorities that want to do this have my absolute support.

We’re certainly not shying away from the target of getting 50% of local journeys walked or cycled, and that will have to be delivered by local authorities, so anybody that want to do that work, they’ll have the department’s full backing’.

This does slightly miss the point that on transport issues, you never get consensus. If cycling networks are going to be built, it will be done with the support of a lot of people, and in spite of the objections of others.

Further, it is local authorities who decide and do the work, not communities. Councils barely represent communities.

Housing Development

Haigh said she wants to make sure that new estates are built around active travel, are built around public transport access, and they will give people opportunity and choice and access.

‘Too many new housing developments are totally car-dependent, and there’s no other option for people, even if they want to avail themselves of it.

They’re set too far away from other areas, they don’t have those public transport routes or access, so we want to make sure that people do have choice and opportunity, and that has to be built in from design, and that’s the new towns commitment that we’ve made, the new towns task force, there’s a huge opportunity to do that’.

National Vision for Active Travel

Would the Secretary of State like there to be national vision for active travel?

‘Yes absolutely, this is why we’re just trying to take a bit of time to develop that strategy and that vision, but that is absolutely where we want to get to.

Not to sound pompous, but [councils] need to see that leadership from the government and from the Transport Secretary. We want to see all parts of transport integrated, whether that be active travel, public transport.

Things like e-scooters are enormously liberating, particularly for older people or people with mobility issues, and that’s just not been thought through in an integrated, visionary way’.