A Reform party councillor in Derbyshire has branded cycling and walking routes in the Peak District “tinkering around with pleasantries” and urged the county’s council to prioritise railway infrastructure and journeys.

It comes as councillors at Derbyshire County Council were meeting to discuss funding and responsibilities for public transport, Derbyshire Live reporting Cllr David Harvey had strong words for his colleagues’ approach to transport in the area, arguing Britain needs to “get back to manufacturing” to “make Britain great once again”.

“As a country that is really struggling at the moment, we need to get back to manufacturing,” he argued. “This year is the 200th anniversary of the Stockton to Darlington railway, designed by George Stephenson, who is buried in Chesterfield.

“He was one of the great British engineers and we need to make Britain great once again. We need to be at the forefront of developing, engineering, manufacturing, technology, that is what we are really good at and we must bring this back.

“It is all very well having cycling and walking paths through the Peak District – it is very nice, I have done it myself, but we must have a focus on growing the economy.”

Cllr Harvey did go on to suggest that this does not mean binning off cycling routes entirely, stating you could “integrate cycling and railway tracks side by side and there is an awful lot we can do”.

 However, he continued: “Tinkering around with pleasantries like walking and cycling through the Peak District… we have got to realise that what is important is the economy in this country so I am fully supportive of any investment in the railways in the county of Derbyshire.”

The comments were prompted after Conservative councillor Sue Hobson spoke about the value of turning disused former railway routes into cycling and walking routes, such as the White Peak Loop. There was also mention of pressure group lobbying around ideas to reinstate former railway lines such as the Monsal Trail.

Monsal Trail, Litton Tunnel
Monsal Trail, Litton Tunnel (Image Credit: Creative Commons Licence)

Councillors were told building new routes or reinstating old rail tracks would be an expensive endeavour, one that the local press reports “may risk all money for public transport in the region being focused on one project, without the certainty that it would ever be able to be funded”.

The rise of Reform UK has meant new political figures voicing their opinions about cycling at a regional and national level.

Earlier this month Reform-run Warwickshire County Council announced it is conducting a county-wide review into whether cycle lanes are “actually worth it”. The council said it wouldn’t “crazily put down cycle lanes” because it’s not “best for the residents”, that despite more than 3,000 residents signing a petition for a delayed five-kilometre bike path to be included in the council’s plans.

In April, Nigel Farage told BBC Breakfast that councils on the “verge of bankruptcy” were wasting “tens of millions” on “cycle lanes that no one uses”, accusing them of mismanaging money while basic services such as adult social care were under strain.

Cyclist next to a LTN planter; Insert: Nigel Farage
Cyclist next to a LTN planter; Insert: Nigel Farage (Image Credit: Adwitiya Pal)

Farage has regularly made cycle lanes a political issue. In 2020, he rebranded his Brexit Party as Reform UK and pledged to stand candidates against councillors who backed new bike lanes and road closures. He wrote at the time that “for much of the day these new bike lanes with their endless lines of shiny white posts lie empty while traffic jams block what is left of the roads”, describing the schemes as “madness”.

The following year, he escalated his criticism by sharing a video of an ambulance stuck in gridlock beside a protected cycle lane in London, writing on Twitter: “This is totally insane. These cycle lanes are a joke.”

In May, Reform was labelled “utterly clueless about how to run a council” and accused of “pandering to the terminally online” after the Nigel Farage-led party pledged to remove all low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) from the areas it now controls – only for the local authorities themselves to confirm that they do not, in fact, currently have any of the traffic-calming schemes in place.

While cycling infrastructure has remained a relatively quiet topic for Reform and Farage in recent times, it remains to be seen if cycle lanes, LTNs, low-emission zones and other active travel measures will be dragged back into the culture war politics of the past few years. For now, much of the Reform-related cycling stories are coming out of local government.