Government’s cycling funding cuts unlawful, Court of Appeal rules – as campaigners say “it’s a mystery why Labour continued defending a Conservative cut”

The Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of campaigners challenging cuts to cycling and walking funding in England, agreeing that the swingeing and controversial cuts to the active travel budget in 2023 were unlawful.

In a decision considered pivotal to future long-term investment in active travel, the Court of Appeal unanimously agreed with the Transport Action Network (TAN) that the cuts – which slashed funding for active travel by two-thirds – were “outside the framework provided” by the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS) made under the 2015 Infrastructure Act, a decision the campaigners said “sets a new and timely precedent” ahead of this week’s spending review.

In 2015, parliament passed the Infrastructure Act, which required the government to specify the “financial resources to be made available by the Secretary of State (SoS)” for infrastructure projects, including cycling and walking for the first time, as part of its Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS).

This decision was viewed as the start of long-term guaranteed funding for active travel, with Public Health England welcoming its “large implications for enabling people to travel in more physically active ways for short journeys”.

However, amid the increasingly anti-cycling stance of the Conservative government at the time, in March 2023 then-Transport Secretary Mark Harper announced that active travel funding would be cut by £200m, a 65 per cent slash in funding and ending the stability of multi-year funding, a move TAN argued was unlawful.

The cuts were also criticised by active travel groups, the Walking & Cycling Alliance (WACA) branding it a “backward move” and “disproportionate” compared to those made for other modes of transport.

Meanwhile, Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, the former chair of the cross-party All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling & Walking (APPGCW) said it was “incredibly disappointing that the active travel budget has seen extensive cuts at a time when we need to really make progress on decarbonisation and when people need cheap transport choices”.

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A legal challenge launched by TAN, arguing that the cuts were unlawful and “outside the framework provided” by the Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy, was initially dismissed by a High Court judge in June 2024, who argued that Harper “was entitled but not bound to consider PM2.5 (particulate matter) levels or air quality more widely”.

In October, the Court of Appeal granted permission to TAN to appeal that ruling with the judge citing a “real prospect of success” for the campaigners, as any funding was only “intended”, rather than a firm commitment.

And on Tuesday, the Court of Appeal ruled unanimously in TAN’s favour, agreeing that the active travel cuts were unlawful – a move the campaigners say “sets a new and timely precedent that ministers cannot disregard duties set by parliament even if they might find them ‘inconvenient’.”

Giving judgment, Lady Justice Elisabeth Laing said: “There is nothing vague about a requirement to ‘specify the resources to be made available by the Secretary of State’.

“The word is ‘specify’ not ‘project’, ‘estimate’ or ‘guess’… that is what Parliament has required, and if the Secretary of State finds it inconvenient, or ‘impractical’ to comply with the procedure for variation, then the Secretary of State can persuade Parliament to amend the legislation.

“The remedy is not to read in words which are not in section 21, or to ignore the words which are in section 21.”

Responding to the verdict, TAN’s director Chris Todd criticised Labour’s decision to defend the previous Conservative government’s swingeing active travel cuts.

“Given how good walking and cycling is for the economy, for improving access to jobs, for the NHS and people’s health, in fact all of Labour’s missions, it has been a mystery why Labour continued defending a Conservative cut,” Todd daid.

“It doesn’t make sense unless Rachel Reeves has been captured by the Treasury groupthink. Investing in small scale schemes, rather than glossy mega-projects like roads, means higher returns for the country and real benefits for communities.

“We are hugely grateful for all the individuals and community groups who responded so generously, without their support this victory would not have happened.”

However, because the funding was cut for the period up to March 2025, for procedural reasons the court could not order its return.

But TAN says it is now seeking an immediate £250m boost, consisting of the slashed funding plus interest and adjusted for inflation.

This argument, the group claims, is boosted by a ministerial briefing revealed in the proceedings, which accepted any cuts would “necessitat[e] higher levels of funding in 2025 onwards to make up shortfalls”.

“In any event the decision sets a powerful precedent that should banish the chop and change funding for good,” TAN said in a statement.

“The case comes at a critical time for cycling and walking, with the previous strategy expiring in March 2025, and 2025 targets set to be missed,” the group continued.

“TAN is calling for the DfT to comply with its legal obligation of providing a progress report to Parliament, as the last report was in July 2022. It is also calling for a public consultation, the last having been in 2016, to inform the level of ambition in the third Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy (CWIS3), which is now long overdue.”

Ralph Smyth, TAN’s consultant who proposed the law in 2015, also said in a statement: “Official advice revealed in the case said that cycling and walking funding could be cut more easily than large projects locked into long contracts. That was exactly why parliament voted to give this extra protection to healthy travel schemes.

“It’s brilliant to see this law finally working as it was intended. We are now calling on the Department for Transport and Treasury to work with us to Get Britain Building a world leading future for walking and cycling.”

The government is currently understood to be seeking permission to appeal today’s ruling to the Supreme Court.