Evaluation of Active Travel Fund 2, Part 2

There’s a second part to the ‘process evaluation’ of ATF2, which follows on from Part 1. Part 2 focuses on monitoring and evaluation.

Like Part 1, the Part 2 report is based on focus groups conducted with local authority officers who had been involved in ATF2 active travel schemes.

Funding Amounts and Time Frames

The officers felt that funding levels and short time frames made it difficult to build high-quality, connected schemes.

‘Participants highlighted the limited levels of funding available through ATF2, and their view that there was a disconnect between the ambition and the extent to which they were able to fulfil this given the funding envelope and time frame’.

Part of the problem was caused by inflation at 12%, which meant that schemes cost a lot more than originally budgeted.

Due to limited funding, officers thought that the changes made by their ATF2 schemes would not be enough to lead to step changes in active travel.

Delays and Cancellations

At the time of the focus groups, most councils had ATF2 schemes that were affected by delays or cancellations, even though theoretically the ATF2 funding should have been spent by the end of March 2022.

Rural and smaller authorities struggled the most, and railed against the requirement to design to the good standards for cycling infrastructure set out in LTN 1/20.

‘We’ve really struggled to spend the money. We still haven’t delivered most of the schemes. It’s been a bit of a nightmare to be honest. Considering we were supposed to be delivering these at pace and we’re now on ATF4 and we haven’t delivered most of the ATF2 stuff…In the meantime, people are asking us, when are these schemes going to be delivered?’

Delays had knock-on effects in terms of local support. Some officers reported facing hostility from opponents of schemes – ‘being in the room of 400 people shouting at me’.

Politics and Polarisation

The government’s changing priorities – now valuing walking schemes more than cycling ones – was confusing for council officers and made it hard to sustain a coherent narrative.

‘The goalposts seemed to have changed with nobody telling us’.

Support from Council Executive and senior officers was crucial – someone to put their head above the parapet. Other officers had experience of schemes being delayed, watered down or cancelled when political leaders changed their minds.

Officers said that they would welcome more vocal support from central government, so that they were more supported in delivering national priorities.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The DfT required schemes that cost £2 million or more to be monitored and evaluated. For smaller schemes, there was no funding for evaluation – but some small schemes such as LTNs can be high-impact.

Some authorities, especially outside London, had little monitoring and evaluation capacity.

There is a lack of pedestrian data historically collected, and to some extent cycling data is also scarce.

Monitoring is easier with a ‘one corridor’ scheme than with several small schemes in disparate locations.

Officers thought that monitoring and evaluation requirements had increased, especially from ATF3 onwards. Data about traffic volumes and air pollution on boundary roads around LTNs is important to councils, because that’s what they are often asked about.

One council found that consultations reveal the views of people who are very interested in the scheme, from either end of the spectrum. But by knocking on doors, they got the views of the people in the middle, who often didn’t know that they lived in an LTN.

Representative polling or the use of panels could replicate this ability to get a wider range of views.

Another approach was to use a social research company to pay people to participate in surveys; by doing so, one council got feedback from people in demographics and of ages that are otherwise hard to reach.