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Cyclists and pedestrians in Castle Park, Bristol (image: Adwitiya Pal)Labour government to invest "unprecedented levels of funding" in cycling
In an encouraging interview for those concerned by Labour's lack of emphasis on plans for active travel during the election campaign and in the aftermath of their landslide victory, new Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has pledged the government will invest "unprecedented levels of funding" in cycling and walking, as well as developing a new road safety strategy.
Speaking to Laura Laker for a piece in the Guardian, Haigh explained how active travel would form an important part of the government's approach to improving health and the environment, adding that "walking and cycling and moving more are essential to solving both of these in the immediate term and in the long term".
"There's lots of evidence to show that will reduce the number of GP appointments by hundreds of thousands, if not millions," Haigh said. "We absolutely want to make sure that we invest at unprecedented levels.
Last week, the head of the Department for Transport joined road.cc contributor and active travel author/journalist Laura Laker on a Trans-Pennine Trail (N62) cycle, along with Active Travel Commissioner Chris Boardman.
At the heart of Haigh's active travel plans, which were notably quiet during Labour's election campaign and first days in office, is that it is "utterly essential to develop our national integrated transport strategy". She also expressed a desire to move to a model of long-term funding settlements like what roads and rail enjoy, rather than the current system which has "pitted councils against each other" in a bidding system.
"We just want to make sure that the funding is delivered where it's needed… rather than where they've got the best bid writers, and where they've been good at hoovering up resources," Haigh explained, hoping that a move to a long-term funding model could make planning and delivery of higher quality, and joined up, active travel projects easier.
"Cycle lanes and active travel work isn't properly joined up," she suggested. "It [transport and active travel] has knock-on effects everywhere else: it gets people healthier, it reduces the burden on the NHS because people are living healthier lives for longer.
"I am here to make sure that education can deliver those educational opportunities and make sure that people from all backgrounds can achieve no matter what postcode they're brought up in. [Transport is] … essential for delivering growth and obviously net zero and safer streets, safety on public transport networks, safety for women cycling down dark alleyways: they can't do any of it without transport."
An internal review into transport infrastructure projects is underway, with campaigners hoping the relative strong bang for buck that active travel can deliver versus roads projects will be noticed. In May, we reported that the last government knew it was not investing enough in cycling to hit active travel targets, a DfT document also showing that the department was aware that "Benefit cost ratio (BCRs) for the cycling central scenarios are in the range 2.0 to 3.1, implying high value for money".
In her piece, Laura explains how she asked the new Transport Secretary about the £16bn of trunk road projects that have been called "low value" by campaigners, Haigh responding: "We're looking at all capital projects, and where that money should be best spent. In a world where there's not much money, we want to make sure it's spent… [to] get the best bang for our buck."
And the MP for Sheffield Heeley appears keen to ensure access to high quality cycling infrastructure is not just something available to those living in major cities and urban areas.
"Rural poverty is a real blight, and it's not something that's really properly considered," she said. "Car ownership now is just so expensive, insurance as a young driver is completely out of reach for a lot of people. So having that access to safe cycle routes is a basic element, is a basic tenet of social justice."
On the issue of her own transport choices, Haigh said she "definitely" wants to cycle more, but has not yet in London.
"I've not cycled in London. I don't know why, because it's obviously super flat. I definitely do want to get into it more, not least because I don't have time to get to the gym. So it's a really good alternative… I'm afraid now I have my ministerial car, I don't know whether Dennis [her driver] would let me, he might have to drive alongside me or something ridiculous," she said.
Last month, Cycling UK called on the newly elected Labour government to put "divisive rhetoric" around active travel to bed "once and for all" with "coherent and committed" investment for cycling.
The cycling charity asked for 10 per cent of the total transport budget to be allocated to cycling and walking, while also moving away from the culture warring and "divisive rhetoric" around the topic stirred by the previous government.
And responding to Haigh's investment pledge, Cycling UK's director of external affairs Sarah McMonagle said: "We are thrilled that the Transport Secretary has made a firm commitment to 'unprecedented levels of funding'. By embracing a shift towards active travel, the government has begun to lay the foundations for a future where everyone has access to clean air, safer streets, and a more sustainable way of getting around.
"For decades, Cycling UK has stressed the potential for cycling to not only improve public health, but address the climate crisis head-on, boost the economy, and help to ease the cost-of-living crisis for everyone. Research by the IPPR, supported by Cycling UK, revealed that at least 10 percent of the total transport budget should be dedicated to active travel within five years to ensure that these benefits are realised.
"We know from working with communities that public support is strong, and we have a clear roadmap to create happier, healthier, greener lives through cycling. We hope to see the government translate these positive words into firm spending commitments for active travel in the forthcoming Autumn Budget."
Recently, Haigh was labelled as a "new convert" for cycling, as a few months after she made controversial comments about cycling, which she later described as a "light-hearted joke", she finally got round to travelling through her Sheffield constituency by e-bike, which she says has the potential to "make all the difference" in encouraging even those wary of the city's hills to cycle more.
In remarks to Department for Transport staff when she first took over the job, Haigh called efforts to make transport more environmentally friendly "the critical thread weaving through every priority".
"A huge amount has been achieved through your work on the switch to zero emission vehicles and sustainable aviation fuels, and we are looking forward to building on that," she told them. "But we will also get straight to work on our plans to make public transport and active travel much more attractive choices."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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52 comments
I read an article today (one of the tabloids) claiming that Haigh has said she won't implement Sunak's promise ("Please vote for me, pleeeaaase!") that any new 20mph zones have to be OK'd by central Govt. And that she is more than happy for councils to sort it out themselves.
Apart from the Guardian, has anyone seen a news report of this? The media seem to have imposed a blackout.
Probably better than the right wing press giving it a kicking.
I saw on twitter yesterday that the reason Adams chose 42 for the meaning of life is that 42 is the ASCII code for an asterix. An asterix is a wild symbol, and therefore the meaning of life if whatever you want it to be.
I don't know if this is true, but I hope so.
Think the UK's managed to get to the stage of "OK - you can have some, but just don't tell anyone".
Perhaps we don't want to trigger objections from "hard working motorists" - we can quietly get some cycle moneys under cover of "recreational" and "place" as long as people don't think they'll lose parking spaces or have to pay more attention at junctions?
We'll have to see. If it's just "more money for cycling" then one cheer. Because at the end of the day we will need some of the space from motor vehicles for active travel. And where driving is easy, Brits drive.
They'll quietly hand out the funding for active travel in anonymous brown envelopes - exchanged with the proper passphrase while sitting on a park bench - and hope that the tabloid press never finds out…
The Sun have now spotted her comments on letting local areas choose whether to have 20mph zones and gone on the attack.
The article in the Guardian wasn't a result of a press release, but written by the journalist who interviewed Haigh as a companion piece to the podcast. Subsequent articles either quoting the Guardian or the podcast (which was released after the Guardian article) are based on those, so inevitably take a bit more time.
I saw at least one other article yesterday (Bloomberg I think), but note more of the papers, and indeed Radio 4 covering it this morning.
It will be interesting to see how many publications try to turn the "I want to end the culture war" into something to keep people worked up about it all.
I can only hope that government ministers keep going for rides with Chris Boardman! Or even quick study tours to NL or - let's be realistic - Copenhagen, (so they don't give change up as "impossible" / "but we're not Dutch". Of course we should be picking the best we can do right now...).
Is there a fund we can contribute to?
What's slightly sad about this is it all reads to me like:
Before last elections: Sunak promises to do the transport equivalent of making us punch ourselves in the face harder. Starmer says "we are also the party of self-harm!"
Now: on the day of an announcement saying "we'll accelerate doing bad things for the environment" we have the other announcement "Look! We will roll back all those culture-war things! (We just won't implement those extra face-punching measures - we'll just keep the normal level)".
Active travel folks celebrate (keeping the status quo! Hoorah!). Some papers declare the end of modern civilisation.
I hope the announcement actually signals something more than just "back to do what you want, councils". Most of them need a push...
For ref (road.cc will probably have this more fully):
Streets Ahead Podcast here (has ads)
Beeb reporting on this.
The government is not going to achieve net-zero by expanding airports e.g London City. They have just flushed their green credentials down the toilet. The timing of the active travel announcement was probably intended to distract from the decision to undo the decision of Newham Council to block the expansion.
Ah but it'll be "green fuels"! (they've been washed green...)
Human affairs seem to follow a kind of law of thermodynamics - it's always "greater resource usage" or "use of wider selection of resources" (often because the last one became more expensive because we ran short). The idea of just using less - well, you can't really sell "less", can you? Nor is that wanted when the number of humans is still increasing...
From clicking the link to this article in the road.cc email it always says "Redirection" at the top before the page loads. I concur.
It would be interesting to know if anyone in Government set the timing of the publication of the interview/podcast, which was recorded last week. Haigh pushing the health benefits of opening up access to active travel may have been deliberate if she knew the disastrous for the environment airport announcement was coming at the same time.
It also makes a mockery of the 'leave the decision-making to local councils'.
Studies have shown that expanding airport numbers won't boost the economy anyway, and even if it did - it is doing it in the most harmful way to the environment that gives financial advantage to only the richest at the expense of the rest of us.
The Guardian article highlights that "Transport in Britain is devolved."
In Scotland, it's projected that "10% of the total transport budget will be allocated to active travel by 2024-25." However, it remains unclear if Labour will match this commitment in England, or offer only nebulous promises like “unprecedented levels of funding.”
It's also commendable to see Scotland's infrastructure, including Glasgow and Edinburgh, showcased in an bit really about England twice out of the three images, but the coverage seems to omit the active travel initiatives under the old SNP/Greens collaboration for comparision.
For a more detailed look at the parties' promises for cycling and active travel, you might find older articles & analysis in road.cc insightful. Additionally, the more commited & ambitious plans for active travel in Scotland, from these articles, I think is aiming to spend nearly £60 per person per year, & has been detailed in shared policy documents by the SNP and the Green Party.
RE: Scotland - that was the projection. But that was already off the rails by the last budget. Along with apparently a swing back to more "what the people really care about" policies e.g. stop troubling the motoring lobby and "normal driving people" (see also analysis here).
Now the Bute House Agreement (pact with Greens who were the driver for much of the "active travel" parts) is in the bin...
The redeveloped Leith Walk is featured above here in Edinburgh. Its designed to bring pedestrians and cyclists into maximum conflict.
"Unprecedented levels of investment"? I have to say that's not going to be difficult given this great Nation's record of complete disinterest in active travel
Correct!
I think we should acknowledge that it's useful to have the Transport Secretary making such a strong statement about the case for investing in active travel. And I'd be happy-ish if they surpass previous Governments' levels of active travel investment (in England).
But "Unprecedented" levels of funding (in England at least) could be achieved just by exceeding the amount that the previous Goverment was spending before it made drastic cuts in March 2023. Hence they could meet this promise while still spending only about a quarter to a third of what's needed to boost cycling to Dutch levels by mid century.
What Louise Haigh has said is undoubtedly promising. However I'm afraid it's not quite time to pop open the champagne just yet!
"But "Unprecedented" levels of funding (in England at least) could be achieved just by exceeding the amount that the previous Goverment was spending before it made drastic cuts(link is external) in March 2023"
Worse still, they could achieve unprecedented levels by hitting a record low. The rhetoric is good though.
I'm hoping for ebikes to get the same subsidies as other electric vehicles and NHS ebikes and adapted cycles for those who can't cycle comfortably.
we could be having a public health revolution if only the government decided to.
Isn't this already the case for subsidies?
Salary sacrifice available for both.
Good idea, but where are people going to ride them? Most perfectly healthy people could ride now (or wheel...) but they don't. Or is this an "aged / distressed (former) cyclists' support fund"?
I doubt just giving people a bit of power will improve people's confidence such that they take to the roads (is the idea for EAPCs or some new category of currently-illegal cycles?)
I'd like to be wrong of course but it hasn't happened in the world AFAICS. For example even in NL where there certainly are places to ride, it seems to be it's more that people who already ride (which is a large proportion of the population) are switching to eBikes or adding them to their collection.
Have you read Laura's book? There are examples in there of ebikes increasing the amount people cycle, and ebike grants enabling them to buy the bikes they otherwise wouldn't have bought. (But you definitely need to infrastructure.)
Well even in places like the US initiatives can get more people cycling. Start from low enough, everything is up!
Depends what we want / hope for. I am rather cynical as I've observed "encouraging cycling" in the UK for decades, but because mass cycling once existed in this country and has come into being in other low-cycling places - with the right interventions (the difficult ones e.g. taking space from motoring and tackling junctions) - I have a faint hope.
If we're just pleased to see interventions to get "some more people cycling" (albeit often temporarily) that can and does happen in the UK. I would love to see more "order of magnitude" interventions (a network of safe and convenient quality cycle routes for everyday social transport, etc etc.). Only happened in a few locations in a very few places (London probably most notably).
I haven't read Laura's book yet. Wasn't on the list as I've very mixed opinions on the "NCN" *. That's probably a reason to get it...
* Amazed at the massive volunteer effort despite lack of general encouragement, disappointed that much of this would barely count even as adequate recreational "cycle network" in more enlightened places. I've enjoyed rambles on it myself - but which I couldn't recommend to folks who rarely cycle etc.).
That's all exactly in line with the book.
E-bikes alone won't get everyone cycling, and improvements to infrastructure must be at the heart of any meaningful strategy. However, there are a lot of people who don't cycle, or don't cycle as much as they would if they had an e-bike, because the local hills are a bit too much. Or there's just one big hill on your route that makes the whole thing unappealing. The same applies if you live in a windy area. I have a colleague who cycles along the coast to work (so fairly flat and lots of it is a cyle path), but it's into the prevailing wind and she'd never manage it some days without her e-bike.
E-bikes are also a game-changer for people who want to cycle to work, but don't want to turn up all hot and sweaty, or for whom the distance is just a bit too far.
The Netherlands isn't a good comparison because so many people who wanted to cycle there were already doing so. So of course most people getting e-bikes are people with regular bikes. But even so, people with regular bikes doing more journeys now they have an e-bike is a good thing, and helps to make the case that better infrastructure is not a minority interest.
Having a few more people is always good. Great to help the people who want to be helped.
Perspective: in 2022 it looks like there were enough ebikes sold to equip 0.2% of the population. Around 1.94 million far more expensive motor vehicles were sold, enough to equip 2.9% of the population *.
ebikes as a proportion of all bikes sold in the UK is going up. And if you gathered all the ebike riders in one place it would be a lot. Compared to people who are very concerned about driving though**? Tiny.
So I'd welcome extra people with "skin in the game". And cycling can quietly develop "on its own" to some degree. However in the UK without some changes in mindset by the folks at the top - and ultimately where we spend money - more generations will pass with not much to show. (Local authorities are key but they're ultimately governed by money flowing to them with conditions attached).
The examples of mass cycling I'm aware of (Netherlands, Seville), that is what happened (it's a vast simplification in the Dutch case but ultimately it was getting the government on board which got things moving).
* Market share of ebikes in UK over time here - numbers of all bikes sold here not 100% sure about their figures. Road.cc using the Mintel dataset (I think) said "E-bike sales have tripled in the past five years from around 55,000 bikes sold in 2017 to 160,000 in 2021. This is however expected to have fallen to an estimated 155,000 bikes in 2022."
** Even just people with driving licences - about 75% of the population over 17 have a driving licence per the 2022 National Travel Survey. Obviously that's not the same as "everyone who drives" but some non-drivers are going to be keen users of private motor vehicles!
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