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Government's words on cycling must be matched by deeds, says shadow transport ministerHouses of Parliament (CC licensed by Rajan Manickavasagam:Flickr)

Government's words on cycling must be matched by deeds, says shadow transport minister

“There is a real danger that the government is drawing up an investment strategy with no investment”
by Alex Bowden
Tue, Apr 12, 2016 12:33
4

Daniel Zeichner, the Labour MP for Cambridge and Shadow Transport Minister, says the Prime Minister has failed to deliver on promises of a cycling revolution. Expressing concern regarding future levels of funding, he said there was “a real gap between the government’s rhetoric and the reality for cyclists.”

Writing for the Cambridge Cycle Campaign newsletter, Zeichner takes issue with government claims that funding for cycling had risen to £6 per person per year, pointing out that London and the cities which have secured Cycle City Ambition grants drag up the average.

“[F]unding for cycling outside those areas after the Spending Review is projected to be around just a paltry £1.39 per person per year. One pound and thirty-nine pence. It seems this government believes that cycling potential should be restricted merely to London and those other cities they deem worthy of investment.”

Zeichner wrote to ask about funding levels outside London and the Cycle Cities in November and said the government reply was, ‘It is not possible to predict the geographical distribution of other funding for cycling at this stage.’

“So the Department for Transport is unable to predict the outcomes of its own spending commitments. Indeed, funding has been disconnected, split between various initiatives, bundled into grants, not ring-fenced, and data on local authority spending are no longer centrally collated. But what we do know is that the £300 million that has been promised for cycling over this Parliament includes £114 million for the Cycle City Ambition Grants and some £50 million for Bikeability training. What funding, if any, will be left over to fund the investment part of the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy?”

Zeichner has asked the government if they plan for the £300m allocated for cycling in the Spending Review to be the sole source of funding for the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy and how much of that is earmarked for cycling. According to him, “they don’t know, or won’t say. There is a real danger that the government is drawing up an investment strategy with no investment.”

Daniel Zeichner
government funding
cycling and walking investment strategy
Alex Bowden

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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4 comments

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Initialised | 8 years ago
0 likes

The gap between rhetoric and reality only concerns cycling policy?

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HarrogateSpa | 8 years ago
1 like

I strongly disagree with Wolfshade's comment. The government is Conservative, and we have to hold them to account for their policies. In this case, the failure to provide anything other than derisory funding for cycling is the fault and responsibility of the Conservatives, and they richly deserve to take the criticism for it.

It's completely inadequate to accept a government claim that they are spending more than ever before on cycling, without assessing the claim. The claim has no merit. The government's investment strategy document talks about what has been spent in the past under the coalition, but it does not mention the amount to be spent under current plans. The truth is that planned spending is woeful. Cameron's promise of a cycling revolution is empty.

Wolfshade implies that the government has decided to spend money on cycling in London, because the population is densest there. This is totally untrue. Money is being spent on cycling in London entirely due to the London Mayor and Transport for London. The government plays no part in the decision, and cannot take any credit for it.

Whatever the aspirations of Robert Goodwill, he has totally failed to persuade the Chancellor George Osborne to fund cycling. Osborne is at fault, but the whole government must take collective responsibility for this failure.

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Paul_C | 8 years ago
1 like

lots of nice words... but we can't have nice things because 'austerity'... yet major road and rail projects worth billions more get the go ahead... must mean there's naff all profit in it for them and their offshore tax haven using 'friends' who are really pulling the strings...

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Wolfshade | 8 years ago
2 likes

This whole political points scoring is really annoying.

In Westminster the Conservative government would tell you that it is spending more money than any other government in the UK history on cycling. But we complain about it and arguably quite rightly so, we have the SNP in Holyrood and a Labour in the Welsh Assembly who seem to also be doing very little in terms of cycling either.

It doesn't matter what colour the rosette the money has to match the talk.

From a purely pragmatic point, I can understand why London would see so much funding. I don't like it, but when you have a limited pot of money and want to impact the highest number of people then you spend the money where the population is densest, which unfortunately means London.

(Here is a nice map of population density: http://www.neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/HTMLDocs/dvc134_c/index.html)

But if there is a policy and a strategy it must be fully funded in order to deliver it. Too often there starts an ambitious idea that is then briefed against, slowly defunded until a terribly compromised project is delivered that doesn't meet the aims and objectives as it has been rendered lame by a death of a thousand cuts.

I can understand why the government cannot predict the outcome of its spending, trying to model the impact of a suppressed demand is hard and with data about cycling and how numbers change vs spending it would cost a lot of money and time to actually understand the relationship to be able to predict the results in a crude way.

Eitherway, we need a well funded, well thought out plan that has proper design standards and is a joined up network, not a hodge-podge of a few lanes that start and stop abruptly a random collection of ASLs and the horrendousness that is shared cycleways.

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