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Get Britain Cycling report set for parliamentary debate

Backbench Business Committee "supportive" of debate on the issue...

The Get Britain Cycling report, published in April following a six-week Parliamentary Inquiry, is set to be debated in the House of Commons.

Dr Julian Huppert, co-chair of the All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group which hosted the inquiry, asked for a debate yesterday at the Backbench Business Committee yesterday and was told it was “supportive” of the approach, reports The Times.

The debate is likely to take place in the coming weeks, adds the newspaper, whose journalist Kaya Burgess set up a petition on a government website to urge Prime Minister David Cameron to fully embrace the report.

That petition is still around 30,000 short of the 100,000 signatories it would have needed for the issue to be considered for debate, but that now seems to have been rendered academic point.

Reacting to the news, Jason Torrance, policy director at Sustrans, who gave evidence at the inquiry, said: “It is fantastic see the recommendations of the Get Britain Cycling report being debated in Parliament but it is important that this results in clear outcomes, not just rhetoric.

"To reach the ambitious goals for cycling we need a combination of investment, infrastructure and policy change.
“Increasing levels of cycling will ease pressure on the NHS, cut congestion and help make the UK one of the cleanest, healthiest and most pleasant places to live in the world.”

The Get Britain Cycling report calls for:

• 10 per cent of all journeys to be made by bicycle by bicycle by 2025 rising to 25 per cent by 2050

• Government funding for cycling should start at a minimum of £10 per head

• Cycling should be considered at an earlier stage in all planning decisions, whether transport schemes or new houses or businesses

• More use should be made of segregated cycle lanes, learning from the Dutch experience

• Urban speed limits should generally be reduced to 20 mph

• Just as children learn to swim at school, they should learn to ride a bike

• The Government should produce a detailed cross-departmental Cycling Action Plan, with annual progress reports.

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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kie7077 | 10 years ago
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If they want 25% of all journies to be done by bike.... wait, 25% by 2050 that's absolutely pathetic, how about they aim for 50% of journies by 2033, and to get this they spend 50% of the road budget on making britain THE cycling country the world is envious of. Make a bike only network, close 1 fifth of roads to motorised traffic. Think big, I quite like borises bike paths above railway lines, that could be a very fast way round the cities.

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Not KOM | 10 years ago
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I hope a debate helps in some way. But the way things are going, do we really expect the f**king Tories to do anything for them that aren't already stinking rich?

You know .. cause cyclists with £5k racing bikes are so poor....  14

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