Alarm at prospect of cycle funding cuts under new government – Conservative manifesto pledges less than a quarter of current funding

ktache wrote:

TWcycle, don't hold your breath mate, unfortunately according to recent figures SUVs outsold the still enviromentally damaging electric cars by 37 to 1.

I'M ALRIGHT!!

I read about that. Many normal sized electric cars are a similar price to an ICE SUV, so people go with "bigger is better/safer" and buy the SUV. All those new SUVs allegedly cancel out any possible environmental benefit from the electric cars.

Prosper0 wrote:

Genuinely thought Boris would back cycling knowing his history. And with Andrew Gilligan on his transport team, surely they must gave something on the way.

But do you really know his history?

He laughed in peoples faces when they said for 5 years that we needed better cycling infrastructure and would say "Dont mention 'Going Dutch'".

He only started to do something after 6 cyclists died in a 2 week window (but not before after a few of them were killed he went on a rant about possibly banning cyclist wearing headphones) and it was pointed out to him that would be his legacy as mayor.

Gilligan pissed off multiple London borough councils so they wouldnt work with him at all.

What segregated section were designed have problems with drainage and as soon as they come into conflict with other modes, its poorly designed that leads back to a culture of 'fend for yourself'.

TWcycle wrote:

Hopefully the crisis will force the government to make some tough decisions that won’t be popular by the hard core motoring community. But maybe I’m dreaming...

Unfortunately you are.

Eton Rifle wrote:

There is worse in store. Some months ago, the Tories announced that they would consider CUTTING fuel duty. With Sterling tanking still further in the wake of a hard Brexit (which is the plan, let's face it) cutting fuel duty will offset the inevitable rise in fuel costs and keep the SUV-driving Gammon demographic onside. Sad times ahead.

Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?

You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer's who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense! 

Labour controlled areas are free to ibest as their party leader wanted them too, coming from a Labour controlled city (since before I was born) they have done the square root of fuck all to increase cycling, Instead the local gov have increased spending on roads for motoring, have aided Highways England to try to push off cyclists off a trunk road and now have effectively sone that in the city centre with a £200M development which has yet more 'fuck all' for cycling just as the previous £80M road development did, well except for a disjointed piss poor bit of segregated that doesn't and never was going to meet the original promise made by the Labour party in charge. and they winder why the city gets gridlocked constantly and when it snows the city grinds to a standstill. The city is ripe to change but Labour won't do anything, so, why not, why aren't Labour doing more in the areas they do control?

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Eton Rifle wrote:

There is worse in store. Some months ago, the Tories announced that they would consider CUTTING fuel duty. With Sterling tanking still further in the wake of a hard Brexit (which is the plan, let's face it) cutting fuel duty will offset the inevitable rise in fuel costs and keep the SUV-driving Gammon demographic onside. Sad times ahead.

Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?

You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer's who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense! 

Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point?

Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don't care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.

Eton Rifle wrote:

Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point?

Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don't care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.

Make up excuses about fraud and Russians and whatever you want to make yourself feel better but the simple fact remains (!) that Leave won the referendum despite being opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI, and despite being massively outspent by the Remain campaign.

Rich_cb wrote:

Eton Rifle wrote:

Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point? Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don't care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.

Make up excuses about fraud and Russians and whatever you want to make yourself feel better but the simple fact remains (!) that Leave won the referendum despite being opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI, and despite being massively outspent by the Remain campaign.

Leave won the referendum because it was opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI

Rich_cb wrote:

Eton Rifle wrote:

Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point? Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don't care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.

Make up excuses about fraud and Russians and whatever you want to make yourself feel better but the simple fact remains (!) that Leave won the referendum despite being opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI, and despite being massively outspent by the Remain campaign.

I wonder if the report on Russian interference in our elections will be released by Boris before he engineers Brexit?  I'm betting not because it shows that there was intereference in the referendum and it is therefore null and void, and that's almost certainly the reason he's refusing to release when everybody else involved says it should be and there is no reason to delay it.

burtthebike wrote:

I wonder if the report on Russian interference in our elections will be released by Boris before he engineers Brexit?  I'm betting not because it shows that there was intereference in the referendum and it is therefore null and void, and that's almost certainly the reason he's refusing to release when everybody else involved says it should be and there is no reason to delay it.

Must be getting pretty bare in that drawer now.

Eton Rifle wrote:

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Eton Rifle wrote:

There is worse in store. Some months ago, the Tories announced that they would consider CUTTING fuel duty. With Sterling tanking still further in the wake of a hard Brexit (which is the plan, let's face it) cutting fuel duty will offset the inevitable rise in fuel costs and keep the SUV-driving Gammon demographic onside. Sad times ahead.

Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?

You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer's who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense! 

Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point? Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don't care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.

Math is a strong point, your comprhension skills however are lacking, I asked a question of which currencies were tanking, clearly you thought I said that the £ had 't dropped anywhere. I know full well that the £ has dropped, most noticeably after the 2008 crash and it continued thereafter and hasn't really recovered since has it?

But in the interim, you mention the EU vote, if those involved in refusing to act on the people's wishes had actually done the right thing then the insecurity that that has brought has had a huge negative effect on the currency markets and the economy as whole! Are you so naive to not grasp, that by blocking leaving that this has dented the UK economy, ffs you people!

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Labour controlled areas are free to ibest [sic] as their party leader wanted them too [sic]

Except they're not. Their ability to raise funds has been severely curtailed, central funding reduced, and they've been landed with mandatory responsibilities that soak up what money they do have, leaving next to nothing for discretionary spending.

mdavidford wrote:

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

Labour controlled areas are free to ibest [sic] as their party leader wanted them too [sic]

 

Except they're not. Their ability to raise funds has been severely curtailed, central funding reduced, and they've been landed with mandatory responsibilities that soak up what money they do have, leaving next to nothing for discretionary spending.

How did Manchester fund the cycle infra they've started on?

In any case, it doesn't cost very much to stop up a road to motorists or block off streets so that motors can't rat run. if we don't see this in Labour controlled local authorities because their leader wants more cycling and safer cycling, then we know that all the words coming from that party is as beleivable as anything coming from the Conservatives! I won't be holding my breath, Labour held councils in the vast majority of areas are no better than the Cons when it comes to cycling, as for protection by police forces, hit and miss, hardly relative to which party are in power locally or nationally.

CyclingInBeastMode wrote:

How did Manchester fund the cycle infra they've started on?

In any case, it doesn't cost very much to stop up a road to motorists or block off streets so that motors can't rat run. 

Bit of a mix. Some of it is short term grant funding, some from the 10 councils that make up Greater Manchester and the majority from Government Walking & Cycling Fund. It is helped massively by having a Mayor and a Cycling & Walking Commissioner (the excellent Chris Boardman) which has formed the link between all of his so rather than having 10 councils all arguing about who gets what, they've done what I said a few posts back which is to design an integrated system, cost it and then bid for it together.

Best of all, the funding is actually committed over a 10-year period which should permit a near-continuous building plan.

In terms of closing roads to traffic (your second paragraph in my bit of selective quoting), it can cost a hell of a lot. Maybe not in terms of actually buying a barrier and putting it there but in time spent consulting (arguing...) with residents, emergency services, utilities providers etc, time spent modelling the impact on surrounding streets, going through legal challenges. It's all incredibly expensive and time consuming. A lot of councils simply don't have the funds and resources for that, they've been cut to the bone with austerity so they just can't do it. So they put out wishy washy "try to drive a bit less" messages as a vague nod in the direction of acknowledging climate emergency.

Batchy wrote:

But how many turkeys voted for Christmas yesterday. I wonder !

Bigfoz wrote:

You can't vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don't have cycling funding in their manifesto... We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

Ah! But don't forget: we'll have Brexit done! And then there will be happiness, prosperity, progress!

WeLoveHills wrote:

Bigfoz wrote:

You can't vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don't have cycling funding in their manifesto... We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

Ah! But don't forget: we'll have Brexit done! And then there will be happiness, prosperity, progress!

And unicorns.  Don't forget the unicorns.

Bigfoz wrote:

You can't vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don't have cycling funding in their manifesto... We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

No. When asked to choose between two smorgasbords, you might still pick one even though it has black olives on it.

This sort of policy shouldn't be subject to party manifestos. It should be devolved to free vote in parliment and committee level.

Organon wrote:

Bigfoz wrote:

You can't vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don't have cycling funding in their manifesto... We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

No. When asked to choose between two smorgasbords, you might still pick one even though it has black olives on it.

This sort of policy shouldn't be subject to party manifestos. It should be devolved to free vote in parliment and committee level.

 

I think that having free votes on anything will be one of the things they'll get rid of in their "constitutional reforms"...

Organon wrote:

Bigfoz wrote:

You can't vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don't have cycling funding in their manifesto... We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

No. When asked to choose between two smorgasbords, you might still pick one even though it has black olives on it.

This sort of policy shouldn't be subject to party manifestos. It should be devolved to free vote in parliment and committee level.

 

I specifically voted in favour of black olives.

Bigfoz wrote:

We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

But does the same "we" as defined a hundred years ago make sense anymore? Perhaps not, however it seems "we" cannot change it, because what "we" want is determined by a system in which 44% of 67% of an electorate, which excludes millions of taxpaying residents, is considered a mandate for short-termist policies which pander to that minority's laziness, greed, xenophobia and nostalgia. And it doesn't help that the opposition are inept and mired in identity politics.

handlebarcam wrote:

Bigfoz wrote:

We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?

But does the same "we" as defined a hundred years ago make sense anymore? Perhaps not, however it seems "we" cannot change it, because what "we" want is determined by a system in which 44% of 67% of an electorate, which excludes millions of taxpaying residents, is considered a mandate for short-termist policies which pander to that minority's laziness, greed, xenophobia and nostalgia. And it doesn't help that the opposition are inept and mired in identity politics.

One of the things that struck after returning to the UK having grown up and worked overseas was the sheer level of political illiteracy in the UK. People vote for a party because their parents / grandparents did, they vote for a politican because they're a "lad", they vote in their own and the country's worst interests simply because a biased newspaper said they should. Nowhere is there any though or consideration of the issues,  the manifesto, or the record of the people they vote for.