Earlier this month, the Government announced a £250m emergency active travel fund. £225m is being allocated to help councils in England outside London create pop-up bike lanes and other measures to improve cycling and walking. The remaining £25m is being used to help people get their bikes repaired so they can get back cycling.
The announcement was followed by Transport Secretary Grant Shapps last week amending laws to reduce ‘red tape’ and supposedly halve the time it takes for councils to get these schemes up and running.
Cycling Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said: “We’re living in a time where many people are cycling and walking more than they did before, and we must build on this opportunity to bring about longer-term change – where active travel is viewed as the default for shorter journeys, long after this crisis has finished.”
Regions have been given the following amounts: (There's a full breakdown further down the page.)
- East of England - £30m
- Midlands - £38m
- North East - £13.4m
- North West - £33.5m
- South East - £70m
- South West - £14m
- Yorkshire and the Humber - £24.5m
Pop-up bike lanes are now being built at impressive speed, several of them to surprisingly high standards for temporary infrastructure. We’re attempting to document what’s happening throughout the country here.
There are however concerns that with lockdown now gradually being lifted, time is running out to deliver meaningful long-term change.
Speaking as far back as April, Manchester’s cycling commissioner, Chris Boardman, said of the coronavirus-induced changes to transport: “It’s a chance to redefine ‘normal’, but we’ve only got weeks to do it.”
More recently, London Cycling Campaign (LCC) has warned that London will be “in real trouble” if plans for emergency safe cycling infrastructure are not implemented quickly to give people returning to work an alternative to driving or using public transport.
East of England
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough £2,874,000
Bedford £607,000
Central Bedfordshire £999,000
Essex £9,683,000
Hertfordshire £8,489,000
Luton £1,082,000
Norfolk £1,971,000
Southend-on-Sea £1,545,000
Suffolk £1,685,000
Thurrock £1,438,000
East Midlands
Derby £1,021,000
Derbyshire £2,216,000
Leicester £1,814,000
Leicestershire £1,500,000
Lincolnshire £1,053,000
Northamptonshire £1,753,000
Nottingham £2,549,000
Nottinghamshire £2,866,000
Rutland £48,000
North East
North East £11,312,000
Tees Valley £2,153,000
North West
Blackburn with Darwen £385,000
Blackpool £520,000
Cheshire East £774,000
Cheshire West and Chester £805,000
Cumbria £1,167,000
Greater Manchester £15,872,000
Lancashire £3,501,000
Liverpool City Region £9,870,000
Warrington £650,000
South East
London £25,000,000
Bracknell Forest £378,000
Brighton and Hove £2,970,000
Buckinghamshire £2,300,000
East Sussex £2,395,000
Hampshire £4,316,000
Isle of Wight £310,000
Kent £8,024,000
Medway £1,545,000
Milton Keynes £1,142,000
Oxfordshire £2,984,000
Portsmouth £961,000
Reading £1,474,000
Slough £920,000
Southampton £1,225,000
Surrey £8,482,000
West Berkshire £619,000
West Sussex £3,919,000
Windsor and Maidenhead £699,000
Wokingham £759,000
South West
B’mouth, C’hurch and Poole £1,398,000
Cornwall £759,000
Devon £1,689,000
Dorset £577,000
Glos £1,442,000
Nth Somerset £474,000
Plymouth £1,244,000
Somerset £602,000
Swindon £962,000
Torbay £276,000
West of Eng £3,705,000
Wiltshire £1,135,000
West Midlands
West Midlands £17,234,000
Herefordshire £200,000
Shropshire £432,000
Stoke-on-Trent £842,000
Telford and Wrekin £382,000
Warwickshire £1,288,000
Worcestershire £1,353,000
Yorks + The Humber
East Riding of Yorkshire £615,000
City of Kingston upon Hull £1,362,000
North East Lincolnshire £419,000
North Lincolnshire £203,000
North Yorkshire £1,331,000
Sheffield City Region £7,186,000
West Yorkshire £12,567,000
York £867,000
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