Campaigners have expressed alarm at how cycle funding will be slashed in coming years following the election of a Conservative government. The party’s manifesto pledges less than a quarter of current funding over the next five years, despite a previous admission that funding needed to double for it to hit cycling targets.
The Conservative Party have pledged to spend £350m on active travel over the lifetime of the next parliament.
This works out at less than £1.20 per person per year, which compares to the current spend of £7. Groups campaigning under the Cycling & Walking Alliance umbrella have called for £17 a head annual spend, rising to £34 by 2025.
“Cycling UK is alarmed at the prospect of a new government slashing the level of funding for cycling in England to less than a quarter of its current levels for the next five years,” said Cycling UK Chief Executive, Paul Tuohy.
“The Conservatives in their manifesto have promised to spend just £70m a year on cycling infrastructure, opening up a chasm between what has been promised and what is actually needed.”
In October, the Government admitted that funding per head in England would have to double from current levels if it were to reach its 2025 target of doubling cycling from 800 million travel ‘stages’ to 1.6 billion.
Tuohy says that from next April there is “absolutely zero money” earmarked for local authorities for cycling and walking infrastructure.
“The Conservative manifesto commitment would see the current £7 per head currently being spent on walking and cycling in England, outside of London slashed to just £1.55 per head. This would be an abject failure by this incoming government to address the climate, air pollution, congestion and inactivity-related health crises the country is now facing.
“That’s why we will be writing to Boris Johnson demanding an urgent re-evaluation of his party’s spending pledge if he is truly serious about making the country ‘the greenest, cleanest on earth’.”
37 thoughts on “Alarm at prospect of cycle funding cuts under new government – Conservative manifesto pledges less than a quarter of current funding”
Now there’s a surprise *irony
Now there’s a surprise *irony*
This will not make a lot of
This will not make a lot of difference to most of the country. Here in the NorthWest cycling infrastructure amounts to a white line painted on the road near new housing developments, as usual the money is only spent in London
Spats Bellini wrote:
Not really, as the funding for cycling infrastructure in London goes through Transport for London which is not funded from central government coffers.
Jetmans Dad wrote:
v
Well I don’t know where the central funds are spent then, I see none when riding around Cheshire and Derbyshire
Jetmans Dad wrote:
v
Well I don’t know where the central funds are spent then, I see none when riding around Cheshire and Derbyshire
Spats Bellini wrote:
Maintainance and upgrade of existing roads are the responsibility of the local council (unless it’s motorways and some A-roads which are Highways England). Councils are given a pot of cash (or more likely, they have to bid for a part of a larger “national” sum offered out by Government) and the councils put forward their costed schemes and our All-Wise Government awards cash.
So if a council has said that a particular road needs widening or a junction needs re-working for whatever reason and they reckon it’ll cost £5 million, they’ll get maybe £4 million with the remaining £1m to come from “other sources” like their own cash reserves or occasionally, if the new / reworked junction is providing access to a shopping mall/supermarket or new housing development, the remaining funds will come from them as part of the planning conditions.
The problem is that the funds granted are ring-fenced – they can’t be spent on a bus service over here or a cycle lane over there. You’ve said you’ll re-work the junction, re-work it.
That’s why you get massive bottlenecks in the road system, it’s why you get random bits of painted cycle lane that end in the middle of nowhere. Partly because the funding isn’t there for it but partly because the funding you do have is ring-fenced for “Scheme X” and even if the new junction includes cycling provision, it’ll stop half a mile later because that is the limit of “Scheme X”. That’s always been the nature of transport planning in this country. Council asks for money, they get less than they asked for (always) and then it has to be spent in a ringfenced fashion on a piecemeal scheme with no thought as to if/how it joins up anywhere else.
Throwing more money at it isn’t necessarily the answer – I’ve long been very against the idea that you spend £5/head or £10/head or £40/head on a transport scheme and then go “ooh we’re spending loads of money!” because that’s no good at all if it’s shit. You just end up with more shit. Come up with a GOOD design that follows the paths that cyclists want to use. Not routes that wind around every back road in town to go 2 miles, not routes that go down unlit unsurfaced canal towpaths but proper segregated infrastructure that integrates with schools, shops, residential areas, trains stations etc and that includes secure bike parking. Cost it. Then build it.
Saying that there are 50000 people in your town and £20/head is £1m and then spending £1m on tins of paint and blue “cyclists dismount” signage does not make you a cycling town or a good example of active travel provision, it means you’ve squandered £1m. But it’s always spun as if somehow spending more money means it must be better.
Manchester seems to be doing
Manchester seems to be doing it’s bit. Mainly for itself, and the wonder that is Chris.
You can’t vote for parties
You can’t vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don’t have cycling funding in their manifesto… We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?
Bigfoz wrote:
Ah! But don’t forget: we’ll have Brexit done! And then there will be happiness, prosperity, progress!
WeLoveHills wrote:
You can’t vote for parties with no cycling funding in their manifesto, then complain they don’t have cycling funding in their manifesto… We voted, we chose, this must be what we wanted, no?
— WeLoveHills Ah! But don’t forget: we’ll have Brexit done! And then there will be happiness, prosperity, progress!— Bigfoz
And unicorns. Don’t forget the unicorns.
Bigfoz wrote:
No. When asked to choose between two smorgasbords, you might still pick one even though it has black olives on it.
This sort of policy shouldn’t be subject to party manifestos. It should be devolved to free vote in parliment and committee level.
Organon wrote:
I think that having free votes on anything will be one of the things they’ll get rid of in their “constitutional reforms”…
Organon wrote:
I specifically voted in favour of black olives.
Bigfoz wrote:
But does the same “we” as defined a hundred years ago make sense anymore? Perhaps not, however it seems “we” cannot change it, because what “we” want is determined by a system in which 44% of 67% of an electorate, which excludes millions of taxpaying residents, is considered a mandate for short-termist policies which pander to that minority’s laziness, greed, xenophobia and nostalgia. And it doesn’t help that the opposition are inept and mired in identity politics.
handlebarcam wrote:
But does the same “we” as defined a hundred years ago make sense anymore? Perhaps not, however it seems “we” cannot change it, because what “we” want is determined by a system in which 44% of 67% of an electorate, which excludes millions of taxpaying residents, is considered a mandate for short-termist policies which pander to that minority’s laziness, greed, xenophobia and nostalgia. And it doesn’t help that the opposition are inept and mired in identity politics.— Bigfoz
One of the things that struck after returning to the UK having grown up and worked overseas was the sheer level of political illiteracy in the UK. People vote for a party because their parents / grandparents did, they vote for a politican because they’re a “lad”, they vote in their own and the country’s worst interests simply because a biased newspaper said they should. Nowhere is there any though or consideration of the issues, the manifesto, or the record of the people they vote for.
But how many turkeys voted
But how many turkeys voted for Christmas yesterday. I wonder !
Batchy wrote:
Look on the bright side folks
Look on the bright side folks. Once the Tory tax cuts kick in, the working classes won’t be able to keep up with the PCP payments on their shiny new cars = less of them on the roads to close pass us cyclists.
There is worse in store.
There is worse in store. Some months ago, the Tories announced that they would consider CUTTING fuel duty. With Sterling tanking still further in the wake of a hard Brexit (which is the plan, let’s face it) cutting fuel duty will offset the inevitable rise in fuel costs and keep the SUV-driving Gammon demographic onside. Sad times ahead.
Eton Rifle wrote:
Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?
You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer’s who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense!
Labour controlled areas are free to ibest as their party leader wanted them too, coming from a Labour controlled city (since before I was born) they have done the square root of fuck all to increase cycling, Instead the local gov have increased spending on roads for motoring, have aided Highways England to try to push off cyclists off a trunk road and now have effectively sone that in the city centre with a £200M development which has yet more ‘fuck all’ for cycling just as the previous £80M road development did, well except for a disjointed piss poor bit of segregated that doesn’t and never was going to meet the original promise made by the Labour party in charge. and they winder why the city gets gridlocked constantly and when it snows the city grinds to a standstill. The city is ripe to change but Labour won’t do anything, so, why not, why aren’t Labour doing more in the areas they do control?
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:
Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?
You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer’s who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense! — Eton Rifle
Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point?
Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don’t care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.
Eton Rifle wrote:
Make up excuses about fraud and Russians and whatever you want to make yourself feel better but the simple fact remains (!) that Leave won the referendum despite being opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI, and despite being massively outspent by the Remain campaign.
Rich_cb wrote:
Leave won the referendum because it was opposed by the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Bank of England, the leader of the opposition and the CBI
Rich_cb wrote:
I wonder if the report on Russian interference in our elections will be released by Boris before he engineers Brexit? I’m betting not because it shows that there was intereference in the referendum and it is therefore null and void, and that’s almost certainly the reason he’s refusing to release when everybody else involved says it should be and there is no reason to delay it.
burtthebike wrote:
Must be getting pretty bare in that drawer now.
Eton Rifle wrote:
Sterling is tanking against which currencies again, certainly not the Euro currently 1.19 to the £, remind me what it was under Labour in December 2008?
You talk about gammon demographic and yet millions upon millions of Labour supporters and those who voted to remain in the EU will be driving their cars/SUVs etc. Or is it only gammon tory voting racist/bigotted Brexiteer’s who drive and kill and maim on the road, typical hypocritical nonsense!
— CyclingInBeastMode Sterling was at c$1.50 prior to the frauderendum. Today it is at $1.33, despite the bounce following the election. Maths not your strong point? Brexit is going to be a disaster for this country and I don’t care many Gammon fuckwits voted for it.— Eton Rifle
Math is a strong point, your comprhension skills however are lacking, I asked a question of which currencies were tanking, clearly you thought I said that the £ had ‘t dropped anywhere. I know full well that the £ has dropped, most noticeably after the 2008 crash and it continued thereafter and hasn’t really recovered since has it?
But in the interim, you mention the EU vote, if those involved in refusing to act on the people’s wishes had actually done the right thing then the insecurity that that has brought has had a huge negative effect on the currency markets and the economy as whole! Are you so naive to not grasp, that by blocking leaving that this has dented the UK economy, ffs you people!
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:
Except they’re not. Their ability to raise funds has been severely curtailed, central funding reduced, and they’ve been landed with mandatory responsibilities that soak up what money they do have, leaving next to nothing for discretionary spending.
mdavidford wrote:
How did Manchester fund the cycle infra they’ve started on?
In any case, it doesn’t cost very much to stop up a road to motorists or block off streets so that motors can’t rat run. if we don’t see this in Labour controlled local authorities because their leader wants more cycling and safer cycling, then we know that all the words coming from that party is as beleivable as anything coming from the Conservatives! I won’t be holding my breath, Labour held councils in the vast majority of areas are no better than the Cons when it comes to cycling, as for protection by police forces, hit and miss, hardly relative to which party are in power locally or nationally.
CyclingInBeastMode wrote:
Bit of a mix. Some of it is short term grant funding, some from the 10 councils that make up Greater Manchester and the majority from Government Walking & Cycling Fund. It is helped massively by having a Mayor and a Cycling & Walking Commissioner (the excellent Chris Boardman) which has formed the link between all of his so rather than having 10 councils all arguing about who gets what, they’ve done what I said a few posts back which is to design an integrated system, cost it and then bid for it together.
Best of all, the funding is actually committed over a 10-year period which should permit a near-continuous building plan.
In terms of closing roads to traffic (your second paragraph in my bit of selective quoting), it can cost a hell of a lot. Maybe not in terms of actually buying a barrier and putting it there but in time spent consulting (arguing…) with residents, emergency services, utilities providers etc, time spent modelling the impact on surrounding streets, going through legal challenges. It’s all incredibly expensive and time consuming. A lot of councils simply don’t have the funds and resources for that, they’ve been cut to the bone with austerity so they just can’t do it. So they put out wishy washy “try to drive a bit less” messages as a vague nod in the direction of acknowledging climate emergency.
Well, those tax cuts arent
Well, those tax cuts arent going to pay for themselves!
I’m gutted. The only way
I’m gutted. The only way things will improve now will be if social acceptance/ urgency on climate change ramps up 10 notches and the guilt / shame of not walking or cycling short distances becomes as strong as smoking in public places. Hopefully the crisis will force the government to make some tough decisions that won’t be popular by the hard core motoring community. But maybe I’m dreaming…
I used to to be a petrol head, but now I’ve seen sense.
TWcycle wrote:
Unfortunately you are.
Genuinely thought Boris would
Genuinely thought Boris would back cycling knowing his history. And with Andrew Gilligan on his transport team, surely they must gave something on the way.
Prosper0 wrote:
But do you really know his history?
He laughed in peoples faces when they said for 5 years that we needed better cycling infrastructure and would say “Dont mention ‘Going Dutch'”.
He only started to do something after 6 cyclists died in a 2 week window (but not before after a few of them were killed he went on a rant about possibly banning cyclist wearing headphones) and it was pointed out to him that would be his legacy as mayor.
Gilligan pissed off multiple London borough councils so they wouldnt work with him at all.
What segregated section were designed have problems with drainage and as soon as they come into conflict with other modes, its poorly designed that leads back to a culture of ‘fend for yourself’.
TWcycle, don’t hold your
TWcycle, don’t hold your breath mate, unfortunately according to recent figures SUVs outsold the still enviromentally damaging electric cars by 37 to 1.
I’M ALRIGHT!!
ktache wrote:
I read about that. Many normal sized electric cars are a similar price to an ICE SUV, so people go with “bigger is better/safer” and buy the SUV. All those new SUVs allegedly cancel out any possible environmental benefit from the electric cars.
Brexit now. Yayyyyyyy
Brexit now. Yayyyyyyy