Media-fuelled culture war clichés about “middle-aged men in Lycra” are doing real harm to public health by distorting how people think about cycling and active travel, Sir Chris Whitty — England’s chief medical officer and the familiar face of the UK’s Covid-19 briefings of the yesteryear — has warned, urging people to ignore tired stereotypes and instead focus on “the maths” and “data which nobody can dispute”.

Speaking at a conference in York a day before the launch of the NHS’s 10-year health plan, the epidemiologist said: “If active travel is seen as something which is simply the reserve of middle-aged, Lycra-clad people cycling possibly too fast around the park, that completely misses the point of actually where the huge health gains are.

“There are some areas where you can send a debate from a cultural war into a much more day-to-day one by actually saying, ‘OK guys, but this is the maths,’ and ensuring that you do so with facts which people find surprising.

“So for example, the culture wars will always try and paint the person who’s in favour of active transport, and let’s say cycling, as middle-class, entitled, speeding like a bad person. What they don’t see is a woman in a wheelchair who actually benefits even more from the activity that we’re talking about.”

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Whitty said physical activity was “one of the most impressive things you can do to preserve health of all forms, physical and mental,” and that the best way to increase activity levels was to embed it into everyday life — through walking, cycling or wheeling to shops, schools or places of worship, reports The Guardian.

“The people who benefit most from any form of activity are people who are doing none,” he said. “And the next group who benefit most are the people who are doing a very small amount, who might do a bit more.

“The second group of people who benefit most are those who are teetering on the brink of ill health, or are in ill health which could accelerate from under them. And for many of those people, a small amount of activity is going to be very hard work, but it is going to be remarkably powerful at preventing and in many cases, reversing the health conditions they have.”

Cyclists and pedestrians in Castle Park, Bristol
Cyclists and pedestrians in Castle Park, Bristol (Image Credit: Adwitiya Pal)

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He also urged transport planners to look beyond big ticket infrastructure schemes and instead address everyday accessibility barriers: “We’ve got to do is build between the places people care about: from their homes to their shops, to their place of worship, to the school and so on. We’ve got to think about that in a really serious way.”

“Transport planners should not just focus on bigger projects such as bike lanes,” he said, “but also on everyday issues such as uneven pavements, which might put off someone with mobility issues from walking a short distance.”

Whitty’s comments echo his 2022 call to “get cycling to fight obesity”, when he told a public health conference that “the idea that the UK is a country you can’t actually do cycling is clearly incorrect.”

Back then, citing Department for Transport data showing that cycling in 2019 had dropped to less than a quarter of the 24 billion kilometres ridden in 1949, he urged people to return to the culture of everyday cycling seen in the 1950s and ’60s — adding that active travel during Covid had shown what was possible with the right political will.

“One of the things that is the most effective ways of improving health – whether it’s cardiovascular, cancer or mental health – is physical exercise,” he said. “And active transport is a particularly important way to do this because it builds it into people’s normal routines of daily life, rather than being seen as something that is separate.”

Cyclist next to an LTN planter, Hackney, London
Cyclist next to an LTN planter (Image Credit: Adwitiya Pal)

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The role of active travel in improving public health has come under increasing political scrutiny in recent years. In October 2024, then transport secretary Louise Haigh accused the previous Conservative government of pursuing “poisonous culture wars” between cyclists and drivers, and pledged to “take back streets” for all road users.

A few weeks earlier, Thames Valley Police came under fire for a neighbourhood enforcement operation called “Operation LYCRA”, a name that was accused of stoking anti-cycling culture war narratives despite its actual focus on e-scooters and moped-style vehicles.

Cycling UK and other campaigners had previously warned that former prime minister Rishi Sunak’s approach to active travel was “politically motivated”, citing the 2023 ‘Plan for Drivers’ and anti-LTN rhetoric. At the time, the charity’s chief executive Sarah Mitchell described such moves as “lazy” and “divisive”, adding: “We are hopeful that this kind of rhetoric will be put to bed once and for all.”

Haigh’s successor, Heidi Alexander, meanwhile, has been described by cycling campaigners as a strong advocate for safe streets, and has promised to put active travel “front and centre” of the Labour government’s integrated transport strategy.

Whitty has also today commented on, and backed, 12 of England’s regional mayors coming together on an “unprecedented” plan for a national active travel network.

Announced formally this morning by Active Travel England it would focus initially on schemes that help children to walk, cycle or scoot to school safely, and Whitty suggested that it has the potential to “significantly improve” public health and benefit 20 million people.

“Increasing physical activity has health benefits across the life course,” Whitty said. “As part of this, we need to make walking and cycling more accessible, and safer, as well as access to green space easier and more equitable. This will help remove barriers to improving physical activity levels and could significantly improve the health of England’s increasingly urban population.”

All of England’s non-London regional mayors, excluding one from Reform UK, have backed the efforts to devolve transport planning and work with Active Travel England to implement schemes.

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While one Reform UK mayor isn’t involved, former pro boxer-turned-Reform mayor in Hull and East Yorkshire, Luke Campbell, has joined nine Labour mayors and two Conservative mayors in supporting the joint pledge to “work together to improve our streets for everyone, for the benefit of the health, wellbeing and connectedness of our communities”.

The initial focus will be improving trips to and from school, with a pledge to create a combined 3,500 miles of routes safely linking schools to homes, town and city centres, and transport hubs.