Cambridgeshire Council’s lead for highways Alex Beckett is under fire for saying that the way conventional routes are gritted “can be sexist”, burying how this could improve cycling and walking under a blanket of snow and ice.

Councillor Beckett’s argument for his choice of words was because he believes the network is “primarily focused on getting men to work in cars”, and that it could “leave active travel users counting the costs with broken limbs”.

As reported by the Cambridge Independent, Beckett said in the Liberal Democrat chair of the county council’s highways and transports committee: “We do need to review the network. It’s currently years out of date and primarily focused on getting men to work in cars. It’s a network focused on businessmen and councillors, not representative of normal people and their lives.”

The comments were described as “bizarre” by the leader of the Conservative opposition Steve Count. Similar charges were held against Beckett on the ever-balanced social media, with even the controversial Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson getting involved. 

However, as the US consulting firm FSG reports, a Swedish gender equality firm found that the routine of clearing snow typically benefited men over women. During winter, main roads — mostly used by men — were prioritised over foot and cycle-paths, quite often used by women travelling with children in pushchairs.

They’ve even got the data to back it up — 79 per cent of pedestrian injuries occurred in winter, with 69 per cent of these injuries suffered by women. Clearing the paths first astonishingly led to halving of these injury-inducing incidents.

Gritting bike lanes has been an issue of contention between cyclists and councils for a while now, with major cycle routes like the Taff trail being ignored in the cold and leaving many cyclists to slip and hurt themselves.

Although there have been improvements, notably in Waltham Forest, London where snow was cleared off from the cycle lanes this winter, gritting cycle routes still remains an afterthought in other places in the country.

This row in Cambridgeshire has ensued after the joint administration of Lib-Dem, Labour and Independent councillors agreed to take out £300,000 from the highways budget by undertaking “a risk-based review of the network covered by winter gritting to ensure it is optimised and giving value for money”, but also adding a “£600,000” reserve fund to “mitigate against risks of difficult winter, particularly in the highways and gritting departments”

Currently, Cambridgeshire’s 37 vehicles grit 34 per cent of the road network in the county, according to the council’s budget papers. The papers also note: “This is high when compared to most other authorities who treat around 25 per cent. A review of the network could achieve financial savings without a significant increase in risk to road users or the authority.”

“The DfT [Department for Transport] also gives us funding based on having a fully developed, regularly updated resilience network. I’m sure that none of us would want to risk that funding,” said councillor Beckett.

He said that this meant £300,000 more would be available, if required to improve the paths for active travel users — and for those engaged in social care, rather than being focused on business users.

Conservative councillor Steve Tierney, however criticised Beckett for thinking “only men drive to work and then amusingly accuses others of sexism”. “I can assure him there’s no shortage of female drivers going to work, certainly not where I live, and it’s an odd view for the chairman of highways,” he added.

Self-proclaimed philosopher Peterson quoted a tweet accusing “two anti-car zealots being in charge of traffic policy” with a profound acclaim that “reasonable people have abdicated their civic responsibilities”.

To which, Beckett replied, “I appear to have irked Jordan Peterson and Tories across the land by suggesting winter maintenance should consider everyone rather than just car drivers”.