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news
Scottish Parliament Bike Stands (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpgConservative MSP questions whether Scottish government’s Access Bikes scheme represents “value for money”
A Conservative MSP has questioned whether a Scottish government scheme designed to enable 500 people to obtain bikes through interest-free loans represents “value for money”.
In the Scottish Parliament yesterday, Brian Whittle, a former European athletics champion in the 4x400m relay, asked the government’s minister for active travel and Scottish Greens co-leader Patrick Harvie why the Access Bikes scheme had yet to provide a single loan in the three months since it was introduced.
Funded by the Scottish government and devised by Cycling UK alongside a number of credit unions, the Access Bikes scheme aims to help people on low incomes and with limited transport options get mobile by providing interest-free loans of up to £500 towards the cost of a bike.
According to Cycling UK, while 62 per cent of households in Scotland with a net annual income of £50,000 and over have access to one or more bikes, that drops to less than 20 per cent among those with incomes of £15,000 or less.
Under the new scheme, no upfront payments are needed and repayments are structured so as to be manageable, enabling adults to buy a new or second-hand bike plus accessories and equipment such as locks and helmets.
At the launch of the scheme in September 2021, Patrick Harvie said: “Promoting cycling is something the government must do to respond to the climate emergency. To make cycling easier, infrastructure is critical, but so too is affordable access to bikes – and I look forward to the success of the Access Bikes initiative.”
However, the project has come under fire from opposition parties in the months since its launch. In December, a freedom of information request revealed that despite the scheme’s intention to provide 500 loans, none had been awarded in its first three months.
The Conservatives’ shadow transport minister Graham Simpson labelled the policy “an expensive flop” and questioned the ability of those on lower incomes to repay the loan within the nine-month term.
"Patrick Harvie has spent nearly £400,000 of public money on a loan scheme that, in three months, has yet to hand out a single loan,” Simpson said.
"It's unclear whether there is an issue administering the scheme, or if there has simply been no demand for it. Questions need to be asked about how active travel is encouraged, but expensive bike loans are clearly not the answer."
Yesterday in the Scottish Parliament, Brian Whittle said that it was not “unreasonable to ask why a scheme that has access to £390,000 of public funds to offer 500 loans has failed to provide even one loan three months after it opened.”
Citing the example of East Ayrshire’s Cycle Station, a social enterprise which encourages locals to cycle by refurbishing unwanted bikes and selling them for a fraction of the cost, Whittle asked the minister if he was willing to “commit to making funds equal to or greater than that allocated to his loan scheme available to support existing successful local initiatives such as the Cycle Station?”
Responding to Whittle’s question, Harvie said: “The pilot scheme is designed to test whether providing interest-free loans can improve bike ownership and alleviate transport poverty. The fact that we have received 348 expressions of interest so far shows that there is demand for such provision.
“We will assess whether the scheme represents good value for money by the number of bikes that have been purchased by September 2022. Cycling UK will provide a report on the scheme’s operation after year one.
“The scheme is in its infancy, and we will judge its effectiveness after the pilot period rather than after a few weeks, as well as continuing to develop the scheme in the light of on-going feedback.”
In August the Scottish government launched another pilot project which aims to encourage active travel by providing free bikes for schoolchildren who can’t afford to buy one.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- AidanR 14 min 59 sec ago
Nope, that's the third cyclist. The second one is invisible.
- quiff 34 min 54 sec ago
The linked article suggests that the station area is covered by an exclusion zone (presumably meaning Lime doesn't recognise it as properly parked...
- slc 42 min 3 sec ago
No rounding - it was 26 minutes. Looks as though someone has walked it many times and found the mean to obtain such precision. Not just looked on...
- Doug_D 58 min 15 sec ago
Another book suggestion - I can highly recommend "Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons: A Mint Sauce collection" - a beautifully presented...
- chrisonabike 2 hours 11 min ago
But... the last is only not the case with drivers on normal roads because driving on the cycle path / footway / rolling a vehicle up there is seen...
- mdavidford 2 hours 49 min ago
I think you're missing an opportunity to pack even more tech into it - add accelerometers that can detect whether they're pedalling or stepping....
- chrisonabike 3 hours 13 min ago
Thanks. I guess the question is "need". If the road is busy, it sounds like it is a desired route between places? In which case (given this an...
- mdavidford 3 hours 21 min ago
Don't know what you mean. I thought my suggestion was entirely practical.
- Rapha Nadal 3 hours 56 min ago
I'd buy a motorbike fo rthat kind of money!
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15 comments
I wonder if he asks the same questions about road schemes?
Sounds like it hasn't cost £400,000, it just has access to that much money.
Here's Patrick Harvie's reply in Parliament:
"I find it a little bit odd that, during the winter, the Conservatives were claiming both that we had splurged £400,000 and also that we had not issued a single penny. I congratulate them on the intellectual agility that is necessary to believe both of those false claims simultaneously."
My biggest concern is that the loan has to be paid back in 9 months, which means many of those it as aimed at cannot afford the payments unless they're buying a very cheap bike.
I suppose it depends on whether unspent funds can be reclaimed into other budgets I suppose.
But yes, currently only setup costs have been spent and can be claimed is 'a waste'. I do wonder if concerns of abuse or defaulted payments have meant stronger checks then normal. Shame the FOI hadn't asked how many applications had been turned down and how many were still ongoing and / or time frames of decisions.
Nine months does seem a little short for a repayment period for the very low paid.
Providing a loan to people in financial difficulty also seems like a bit of a trap. I'd rather the tax-payers just bought the bikes and donated them to people in need of mobility.
Birmingham Council had some free bike schemes a few years ago. Raleigh bikes painted orange with Birmingham on the downtube. Still see some out and about when I'm on my commute. 2000 or so in the end I believe.
Much as I hate to agree with a Tory he may have a point.
It certainly didn't come out of the blocks running. But then - in terms of national level public money spending - this isn't even a full handful of peanuts.
I would like to see this working. Maybe it does need a little more time. But given more time and it turns out it's a bureaucratic failure then yes, scrap it. I do note that this is one of the very few "subsidies" to do with bikes, whereas overall all motorists are subsidised (relative to what they pay in taxes - when the full costs of motoring are accounted for). Plus there are additional schemes too.
Even if it becomes fully subscribed it certainly isn't a panacea. Like the rest of the UK Scotland is largely short of decent options for mass cycling. (There are some historic exceptions - but at least in Edinburgh the roads are as uninviting and as physically damaged as anywhere in the UK). Also Scotland failed to reduce the default urban speed limits when it had the chance * and is very happy spending a ton on new roads. Although the spend on "active travel" is up a bit it will take some years for that to filter through. That's filter through into actual plans - it'll take much longer for actual cycle networks.
* Because "a one-size fits all approach was not appropriate"(!) It's almost like some politicians were willfully misunderstanding the concept of a default - which we already have. And this in spite of it being perfectly possible under the scheme for local authorities to put speeds back up if "needed"...
500 interest free loans of up to £500. I make that £250k
Cost to administer scheme: £400k
Just buy 800 £500 bikes and give them away!
I'd certainly have been very happy if they had put more money the way of the Cycle Station or The Bike Station or other such schemes. That gives you bikes for less than 500 quid, recycles old ones, provides maintenance and even training / jobs!
I'm not seeing that it's 400k to administer the scheme. I think that's the total pot of money available, most of which is available for loans. Obviously there will be admin costs - which of course might turn out to be ludicrous.
However whether or not this particular scheme is worthwhile I don't think the "give them a fish" model is generally a good use of the money. So I wouldn't just hand out bikes. For psychological reasons it's important people put money in themselves - even if their costs are heavily subsidised.
Surely the money for the loans you get back, so there should be next to no cost to the public purse.
The quote "Patrick Harvie has spent nearly £400,000 of public money" suggests that is not to be recouped.
Your point about free stuff not being cared for is very much accurate, just look at how hire bikes, trains and public playground are treated
That quote looks like it may be (deliberately) misleading. The one further down says "a scheme that has access to £390,000 of public funds", which kind of implies that they haven't actually spent all that money yet. So it's not a stretch to think that they may also be being (deliberately) misleading in suggesting that none of that money will be rcouped.
and the cost for implementation will be .....?
While there is much chest thumping regarding financing of active travel this is mainly in tourist areas and pretty much aimed at leisure cycling. Little to nothing is currently being done to encourage utility cycling in many areas. Renfrewshire is doing stuff but is mainly the outlying corridors. Once you're spat out when it becomes more urban there is nothing to facilitate utility cycling. This and the huge opposition toward restructuring of junctions to protect vulnerable road users is all pretty much disheartening.
There was also the opportunity to introduce presumed liability into the legal system but this too was shot down in flames by the then Transport Secretary. Police Scotland is dragging their heels in introducing an electronic portal to report close passes. I'm sure that the justice system could even establish traffic offence courts with Sheriffs specialising in this particular area. There's so many firsts that could be scored and sadly these opportunities are not being taken.
I generally agree, I'd frame it as Scotland is the best of one of the worst (UK). There was an increase to a sensible minimum active travel spend. As you say many initiatives were proposed - a positive sign - but failed (e.g. 20mph as an urban default).
"Mainstream opinion" (what politicians / media say and many people accept) in Scotland still shares much with the rest of the UK. There is a complex of beliefs around transport, some true but many just a reflection of "what is" now. That doesn't mean that there are no alternatives nor that we are simply stuck at the point we've got to. After all part of the reason for all the motor vehicles is decades of very deliberate government promotion and funding!
These beliefs include things like the following: cycling is not "transport" - it's at best a leisure activity (or only "transport" for the poor / criminal). Transport "strategy" must be about a few high-expense projects - large road / rail / air projects. People won't shift to self-powered / lower powered transport modes. Thus change cannot come at the "expense" of driving. There are several vicious circles e.g. no-one cycles so we can't build cycle infrastructure, cycling is not convenient and doesn't feel safe so I'm not giving up my car etc.
Each of these can be challenged. Plotting a course of change given the reality of where we are and given those beliefs is indeed difficult. But - at least in the past - politics wasn't merely about staying on top by any means. There was an idea that you could have a programme. That politics was about leadership which didn't always mean "doing the least unpopular thing". That you could bring in changes which were initially unpopular but which had longer term benefit.