Bicycle Association – UK cycle trade body gets into advocacy

The Bicycle Association (BA), the national body representing the cycle trade, has urged the government to spend at least 10 per cent of its transport budget on cycling. The plea comes as the organisation announces its plans to extend its cycle advocacy work.

BikeBiz reports the BA's operations director Steve Garidis as saying: "The trivial proportion of the transport budget currently allocated to cycling must be increased to at least 10 per cent. The UK badly needs a high-quality cycle network connecting urban centres, stations, schools, and workplaces."

Since 2003, the BA, together with the Association of Cycle Traders, has run a voluntary levy scheme known as Bike Hub which generates funds from within the cycle industry to support the future of cycling in the UK.

Around £350,000 is raised each year with contributions going towards cycling participation projects across the country.

The BA now plans to extend the scope of Bike Hub with a new Bicycle Industries Fund geared towards promoting and advocating cycling.

BA members are to hear of the plans at a meeting next week.

The meeting, to be held in Birmingham, will also feature a presentation by Michael Freason, a director at economic and social development consultancy SQW, in which he will report on the scale of the UK cycle market at present.

Freason says that the market had an annual revenue of £2.6 billion in 2015, contributing over £500m in VAT and sustaining 23,000 jobs.

However, he will also reveal that youth ownership of bicycles declined by 4.5 per cent between 2010 and 2015.

Frearson, a director of the Association of Bikeability Schemes between 2013 and 2015, said:

"Fewer than half of all primary school children receive Bikeability training, the modern cycling proficiency.

"Levels of cycling to school have not exceeded two per cent for the past twenty years. It is self-evident that without access to a bike nor the chance to learn, young people will probably never cycle in later life."

The meeting will therefore see the BA release a manifesto calling for a VAT exemption on children’s bikes.

The organisation would also like to see the current Cycle to Work scheme expanded to include the purchase of electric bikes.