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Bids invited for share of £78.5m Local Sustainable Transport Fund cashPalace Of Westminster At Night © Andrew Dunn.jpg

Bids invited for share of £78.5m Local Sustainable Transport Fund cash

Money relates to 2015/16 year - but maximum bid amount of £1 million is much smaller than before
by Simon_MacMichael
Fri, Dec 27, 2013 19:30
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Local transport authorities in England (outside London) have been invited to bid for a share of £78.5 million from the Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) to boost the number of journeys made using public transport, cycling and walking – but the amounts available are much smaller than before.

The Department for Transport (DfT) announced guidelines on the operation of the LSTF 2015 to 2016 competition last Monday 23 December.

Among them is one that reminds bidders of Prime Minister David Cameron’s committing the government last August “to bring about a step change in levels of cycling including encouraging local authorities to 'cycle proof' roads.

“Sustainable transport bids with a strong focus on walking and cycling will be viewed favourably as these can play an important part of supporting economic growth and town centres as well as improving the health and quality of life of local communitiesm," it adds.

The maximum amount local authorities can bid for relating to 2015/16 is £1 million (plus local match funding).

Projects cannot begin until April 2015 – the month before the next general election is due – and the money must be spent by March 2016.

The maximum amount available to individual bidders is much less than that previously available under the LSTF, established in 2011 with total funding of £600 million through to 2015.

Last year, for example, half a dozen schemes in areas including Greater Manchester and Bristol were awarded funding of £20 million or more and many others benefited by much more than the £1 million that will be available this time round.

Referring to the 2015/16 bidding, Baroness Kramer, minister of state at the DfT, said:  “We have seen some real success stories from previous winning schemes so I am looking forward to considering the plans that are put forward.

“Earlier successful schemes addressed a variety of sustainable transport measures and we saw significant changes in the way people travelled as a result. The improvements the schemes generated have given people more options to make healthier and greener transport choices.

“In the new year I will be inviting local transport authorities to start preparing and developing their proposals,” she added.

LSTF
DfT
Baroness Kramer
Simon MacMichael

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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4 comments

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Simon E | 10 years ago
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In Friday's Guardian Peter Walker wrote about safety devices (the article was alongside and in response to one about radar- and radio frequency-powered warning systems.). The most pertinent sentence was:

Quote:

to take Britain from its current position, where a mere 2% or so of trips are made by bike, to a Dutch-style 20%-plus would need decades of coherent, consistent spending and planning on cycling, along with disincentives for driving."

Avatar
Al__S | 10 years ago
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£1 million plus local funding will not fund truly revolutionary changes. It'll get you a hell of a lot of paint and a few bollards. Or maybe one junction but even there it can so easily be badly mis-spent ( as happened in Cambridge).
This stop start drip feed is hopeless. We need cycle funding to be an integral part of roads funding, for a rolling programming of street and road reconfiguration.

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Simon E | 10 years ago
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Most councils would waste it on token stop-start provision with as many "cyclists dismount" signs as possible.
2

To put the amount of money in context, it's £20 million less than Shrewsbury council and our nice-but-dim MP want to spend on a 6 mile bypass around the town... even though we already have a dual carriageway bypass and inner ring road.

In other words, not enough to do anything meaningful. And the 'step change' will not happen until more people feel the roads are safe enough for them.

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Paul J | 10 years ago
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£79m, to meet a commitment to bring about a step change in levels of cycling? Bwahahahaha. Oh wait, it's not funny.

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