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news
Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelBudget reaction: £2 billion for active travel not enough for government to meet its own targets, warn campaigners
Active travel campaigners have said that funding for active travel announced in today’s Budget and Spending Review from Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak will not be enough to meet the government’s own target of doubling levels of cycling and increasing levels of walking by 2025.
In his address to the House of Commons this afternoon, Sunak said that the government would provide “funding for buses, cycling and walking totalling more than £5 billion” in England – misreported by the BBC in its live online coverage of the announcement as “spending on cycling infrastructure of more than £5 billion.”
In its Autumn Budget and Spending Review 2021 (SR21) published today, the government says it “will invest over £5 billion in buses and cycling during this Parliament.”
It claims that the funding “delivers a step change in investment, delivering the commitments in Bus Back Better and Gear Change” – the latter being the document that set out its active travel pledges.
More than £3 billion will be spent on improving bus fares, services and infrastructure, and the government also says there will be “more than £2 billion of investment in cycling and walking over the Parliament,” and claims that it includes “£710 million of new active travel funding at SR21.”
It added: “This funding will build hundreds of miles of high quality, segregated cycle lanes, provide cycle training for every child and deliver an e-bike support programme to make cycling more accessible.”
It is unclear, however, whether that £710 million really is ‘new’ money, given that it is now 18 months since Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced in the House of Commons in February 2020 that the government would be spending £5 billion on buses and active travel between then and 2025.
And if – as Johnson promised – £2 billion of that money is for active travel, equivalent to £400 million a year, the question must be asked of when that funding is going to come fully on-stream, given that, for example, the amounts allocated to local authorities under the first two tranches of the £225 million emergency active travel funding announced last year total £217.5 million.
Besides the “more than £2 billion” set aside for cycling and walking, £6.9 billion in funding for eight English city regions announced today will also include some spend on cycling.
That includes investing in active travel in Greater Manchester, a Dutch-style roundabout in Bradford, and improvements for cyclists and pedestrians in Tees Valley and Bath and Bristol – although as this article from Transport Network points out, again it does not appear to be ‘new’ money.
Responding to today’s announcement, Sarah Mitchell, CEO of the charity Cycling UK, said the money fell well short of the investment needed for government targets for growing active travel set out in last year’s Gear Change document to be met.
“Ring-fenced funding of £2 billion over five years will enable councils to get on with building hundreds of miles of separated cycling routes in both urban and rural areas,” she said.
“However it won’t deliver the tens of thousands of miles needed to create the ‘world class’ network that the government promised in its Gear Change vision document last year.
“Meeting the government’s own targets to double cycling and increase walking by 2025 will require investment of between £6 to £8 billion,” she added.
“If England is to have a chance of making this target, local authorities must be able to make up the shortfall and secure additional funding if we’re to ‘build back better’.”
Xavier Brice, chief executive of the sustainable transport charity, Sustrans, warned that current levels of funding for active travel meant it was “unlikely” that the targets the government had set itself for 2025 would be missed.
“Last week, the UK Government’s Net Zero Strategy reiterated the target for half of all journeys in towns and cities to be cycled or walked by 2030,” he said.
“This is a very ambitious target that highlights the need for long-term, reliable investment in active travel, and also public transport.
"However, whilst the £2 billion of funding is a great starting point for building up walking and cycling, the UK government’s existing targets for 2025, which include doubling cycling, are unlikely to be met, and so we look forward to the government setting out how they will meet the 2030 target in the forthcoming second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy,” he added.
Meanwhile, with less than a week to go until the start of the COP26 conference in Glasgow, the government has been criticised for continuing to freeze fuel duty and pledging to reduce air passenger duty for domestic flights – with Green Party MP Caroline Lucas tweeting that it looked as though Sunak “didn’t get the memo on the climate emergency.”
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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62 comments
I don't think that's quite fair (though definitely true in some cases): I have a number of friends in London who absolutely despise their bus/train/tube/combined commutes and would love to cycle but are genuinely scared of riding in London traffic. Pleased to say I've managed to find safe routes for several and they're now keen commuter cyclists, including Mrs H, but it remains a serious concern for many - I even know a couple who love cycling at weekends and in the country, and have no car, but who won't commute because they're worried about the traffic.
I have to drive a van 4 days a week for my job. I can assure you that when I park up the van on a Friday and get on my bike it is a much more comfortable and convenient means of transport.
Now this is more like it - 8/10. Nothing inflammatory on the surface but it sounds like a "reasonable opinion" so they'll read on. But wait 'till they hit the "fill in the potholes" / ebikes are for the "unfit and lazy". An argumental Möbius strip! Nice oblique writing off the children, support for people not in cars and bike infra too.
Dangnamit Roscoe, I think you're on to something! We need to make a handbrake turn, floor it out of the environmental cul-de-sac of bikes and LTNs (didn't Lenin ride a bicycle? Or was that Corbyn?) and cruise on down the smooth highway of a more reasonable future where drivers and cyclists can courteously share the space and politely wave each other onward.
Both of course. Lenin was famously (for some defintion of famously) hit by a car while cycling in Paris in 1910(?) and successfully sued the driver for a new bicycle. Or something like that.
I recall - it was at a signalised junction and the judge found that the driver had crashed a red.
Hit by a motorist, surely?
Either that, or "sued the car".
Filling in potholes is incredibly bad value, better to have a rolling programme of resurfacing roads properly, rather than spending all the money pacthing the potholes as they appear, and still being left with a poor quality patchwork, which is more liekly to fail again, due to all the joins.
The idea that potholes once fixed stay fixed is laughable. I'm sure we have all seen pothole repairs fail before the surrounding road.
Classic government ploy is to reannounce old financial commitments as if they're new money. £2bn was announced last year.
Yup; Maggie did it all the time.
So did Blair.
It is a dishonest tactic whoever does it and it has happened all my adult life regardless of the Government's colour.
"They're all the same" is not true, but often wheeled out by someone who is trying to make themselves feel better about voting for the bad guys.
Is Starmer as dishonest and cynical as Johnson? Plainly not.
Who are the 'good guys' then?
The Greens.
It's certainly going well in Brighton.
But are you sure it's not the Conservative and Labour block (29 together) thwarting the Greens and everyone else (25)?
Seems that pay had been "historically low" (no surprise there). The Tribune's article points out "If the refuse service had been outsourced to a private company, using temporary contract workers, and refusing to recognise trade unions, this industrial action would’ve been impossible." So maybe the Green's mistake wasn't doing what so many other councils have done sooner? (Apparently the council did try to bring in private contractors during the strike.)
"...one Conservative Councillor asserting that ‘you can’t negotiate with terrorists’ in reference to discussions with the GMB."
An excellent example and an accurate represention of Green party policies (not).
That's the Brighton where Conservative councillor Joe Miller apparently described dealing with striking bin lorry drivers as being "like negotiating with terrorists".
Meanwhile the noise about money for active travel won't really mean anything until councils decide to build infrastructure. As described above, and many times before by people far more knowledgeable than me, the fear of traffic is the biggest impediment to more people cycling. And although Nigel likes to think of most of us on here as idiots happy to parrot a party line, the fact is that as cyclists we know all about the perceived danger of cycling in traffic and the huge positive difference decent infrastructure can make. But he seems to enjoy baiting people and provoking a reaction too much to stop. This is a widespread thing but seems a bit pathetic to me, as if he hasn't anything better to do. It is extremely instructive to have one's own views challenged and I welcome that but his Clarksonesque ranting and baiting isn't enlightening. The comment about Brighton council appears to be made in the same vein, unfortunately.
The BBC's analysis of the budget says "Stopping flying is one of the single best things you can do for the climate - but flying within the UK will become cheaper, thanks to a halving of air passenger duty."
The article also states "the government says it wants people to drive less, but it is expanding the road network." Combined with a fuel duty freeze for the 12th consecutive year it does nothing to persuade people to leave the car at home.
Today the bbc reports that he claims it will reduce the overall amount of aviation pollution due to the new band for ultra long flights.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59062696
Seems a bit hopeful to me, as a long haul flight will be mainly a business paid one or a one off where the person is shelling out for holiday of a lifetime, so a couple of hundred quid is no obstacle.
I find it hard to believe that the increase in domestic flights will be less than the long haul reduction. Emmissions are based on the first 1000m so more domestic flights is worse (plus travel to and from the airport)
https://www.aef.org.uk/what-we-do/air-pollution/
In fairness I think the IFS back that claim.
I can see what they have laid out but how can they be sure that higher ETS prices will lead to lower emissions ? Why not pass the costs onto the consumer?
Are all the UKs emissions covered under ETS ?
Maybe it is just a problem with using twitter and everything is shorthand but they haven't made a convincing argument or perhaps convincing plain english argument.
I'll be honest I didn't completely understand the argument either.
I do trust the IFS though so I'm prepared to accept their verdict even if it confuses me!
I suppose if you believe that lowering the cost of flying (tax reduction) will increase the number of flights and hence emisssions. Then we will also be true that of the cost of flying goes up (ETS costs) then this will reduce flying and emissions.
I would rather we did something else though. Maybe something like this is better? Though better trains may be necessary.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/apr/12/france-ban-some-domesti...
France to ban some domestic flights where train available | Climate crisis | The Guardian
I figured that the cost would have to go up somehow.
Much like the freeze in fuel duty whilst fuel is near record highs (in nominal terms at least) it sounds worse on paper than the reality.
As VAT is paid on fuel the tax take on petrol and diesel increase with pump price. The current rise in fuel price is driven by the crude price.
I was aware of that.
I meant that, in the context of very high crude prices, a freeze in fuel duty is not as damaging from an environmental perspective.
I dd try and find a simple version of ETS but no joy and am I not wading through the ones I did find as they are quite detailed.
But is does seem that companies have to make extra reductions elsewhere in order to compensate for the increases from aviation.
Yes, I think your are right. My explanation was a little simplistic as it focussed only on aviation which is only one of the sectors involved in ETS.
The idea is that the market will push down the ecmissions the are less profitable.
It is why I was interested in some more domestic aviation action.
Has Count Binface jacked it in now then?
I agree there are degrees in this. I don't believe they are the same.
On this particular point though it is disingenious to insinuate that all Governments have not been guilty of it to some extent.
I certainly don't need to feel guilty about who I voted for, they are not in the current Government.
PS Johnson is at the bottom end of PMs I have experienced when it comes to telling the truth.
Below, sending the nation to war on the basis of lies about WMDs, and then when called out about exagerating the evidence forcing the head of the BBC to resign for backing the correct journalist. And then taking no resposibility when the WMD report was proven to be an exageration?
And subsequently stating he had no regrets and that removing Saddam was the right thing to do, regardless of WMDs, which was not the argument made before the war and was not an argument made against Mugabe who probaby caused more deaths with his induced famine, from disrupting farm production. It certainly looks like any excuse to pursue a war about oil
Thats a pretty high bar to beat in terms of dishonesty. Although in all other things the Blair government was far more competent than the current shower.
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