With one month until active travel projects in Sheffield were due to be completed and no sign of work even beginning until November 2023, some campaigners are concerned projects are being delayed for political reasons, with one Labour Party source saying the council leader does not like cycling because he thinks it is “middle-class”.
However, speaking to road.cc council leader Terry Fox rubbished the claim, saying he has “always thought cycling is for everyone” and pointed to his voting record as proof of his belief in active travel schemes.
Despite the funding already being in place, five major ‘Connecting Sheffield’ projects have now been delayed by years and will not begin construction until the autumn at the earliest, raising concerns and prompting the council to insist it “remains committed” to the scheme.
However, one Labour source told Now Then that the leader of the council, currently a coalition of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green representatives, Cllr Fox “doesn’t like cycling because he thinks it is middle-class”.
The council leader responded to the comment, telling road.cc being “accused by someone anonymous of something I cannot recall saying is upsetting” and “does sometimes get through this thick skin of mine”.
“I have to say that I do have feelings and to be accused by someone anonymous of something I cant recall saying is upsetting and then to get all the correspondence of not very nice comments does sometimes get through this thick skin of mine,” he said.
“As a miner for over 30 years who sometimes rode a bicycle to work and saw lots of my fellow comrades doing that with snap bag over one arm and towel under the other, riding to the pit for the start of their shift is a memory I will hold and cherish. My best mucker still rides avidly along with my son, they did a charity bike ride for the Lord Mayor’s charity few years back.
“I also taught my children and grandchildren to ride and even bought their bikes, just last week buying my youngest grandchild his bike.
“I’m now disabled from my time in the mines, with my knees and respiratory condition but have always thought cycling is for everyone, as can be seen by my voting record on a number of schemes across the city.”
The ‘Connecting Sheffield’ schemes will see active travel infrastructure built, including some temporary cycle lanes being made permanent and should have been completed by March 2023.
It had been feared the government could have withheld the funding, awarded to Sheffield City Council under its Transforming Cities Fund, due to the delay but the Department for Transport confirmed to Now Then that funding has been delivered and the deadline possibly abandoned due to nationwide supply shortages.
However, concerns about the promptness of the work remain, and nearby Leeds already started construction on similar projects, also to be funded by TCF money, back in August last year.
Sheffield received its funding at the same time as its Yorkshire counterparts but work will begin 15 months later at the earliest.
A spokesperson for CycleSheffield told road.cc: “We believe the planned schemes will be delivered, however, the long delays to these schemes during a period of high inflation means that what will be delivered will need to be scaled back or other cost-cutting measures applied. We will therefore not receive the same benefit and less active travel trips will be enabled as we would if the council had prioritised delivery of these schemes.
“We accept that Brexit, Covid and 12 years of austerity have reduced the council’s ability to deliver large-scale infrastructure projects and increased costs, however, it is clear that Sheffield has been slower than other cities — for example Leeds — in delivering these kind of schemes. It is felt that this is due to a lack of enthusiasm for active travel amongst some senior politicians in Sheffield Council.
“I would also like to point out that about 50 per cent of the undelivered Transforming Cities Fund schemes are for public transport improvements and these delays are impacting upon bus and tram users as well as people who would like to walk and cycle.”
Is cycling middle-class?
Commenting on the Labour source’s comments about the council leader, Now Then highlighted 2021 statistics from the Department for Transport which showed more workers in routine and manual occupations travel by bike (2.7%) than those in managerial or professional positions (2%). Likewise, those in the middle income brackets, the results suggested, are also much more likely than those on lower incomes to travel by car.
In 2018, London’s Walking and Cycling Commissioner Will Norman said that the English capital needed to shed its white, male, middle-class cyclist image and encourage women and people from ethnic minorities onto bikes.
61 thoughts on ““Cycling is for everyone”: Council leader responds to claim he “doesn’t like cycling because it’s too middle-class””
The usual problem with these
The usual problem with these schemes; they are subject to the whims of local politicians who are frequently misinformed, prejudiced and have little idea of the benefits of active travel. We can only hope that these obstructionists lose their seats soon.
one of my not a cyclist mates
one of my not a cyclist mates asked me how the new bit of infrastructure worked,…… nope, can’t answer as its just pointless, may join up with something one day, perhaps .
Terry Fox “doesn’t like
Terry Fox “doesn’t like cycling because he thinks it is middle-class”.
Well that is as ridiculous as me saying that “Golfing is only played by twats who have no dress sense of their own”. At least I recognise that I really don’t understand golf and know that I’m just being a bit of a prejudiced twat
Does he therefore believe
Does he therefore believe that driving is fundamentally working class? Because I hate to break it to him, but a disproportionate number of his working class constituents don’t own cars.
Presumably the key audience
Presumably the key audience is seen as car-dependent working-class people. And I’m sure they get good mileage out of “Lord Snooty owns a Bentley but doesn’t want *you* to get in his way in the roads!”
Same way cycling can be spun as bad by both sides – “it’s for the avocado set” / “it’s just yobs and hippies on bikes – those unwilling to better themselves lawfully”.
Fact is that the car sellers have both ends of the market in thrall. It’s just a bit easier if you’re richer, as always.
I am a working class peasant
I am a working class peasant and ride a bike! wtf? Walsall Council leader Mike Bird [ Con ] said he believed that cyclists are dinosaurs and are inferior to motorists in evolutionary terms. He said this at a council meeting,, I almost brought up my lunch .
Stevearafprice wrote:
cycles are dinosaurs?
oh, my mistake.
I always get confused here –
I always get confused here – according to BikeSnobNYC the dinosaur (extract) is normally on your head?
This just strikes me as a
This just strikes me as a divisive attitude. Cycle infrastructure benefits everyone and is the best value return on investment, so it makes me think that politicians that don’t want to implement it are working for the oil/motor industry and not the people they’re supposed to represent.
To a first approximation our
To a first approximation our government / local authorities etc. are working for:
– The fuel/power industry – because there will be a revolution if the lights go out / gas stops, and everything else will stop e.g. water.
– The transport industry – ditto but with avocados, cars, wine, plastic rubbish from China … actually everything we consume, 90%+ coming in metal boxes on / in bulk in the holds of on very big ships.
– The health industry – because if people start dying because all the medicines, products and machines run out that’ll make others a bit grumpy.
These are fundamental to our current mode of existence.
Also – the motor vehicle industry – because people use those to get to jobs / do the deliveries / pick up things from the first 3.
There are other big “basic services” lobbies as well of course (banking, communications…). However if you’ve an issue which conflicts with any of those above you’ll have a battle getting it moving with the politicians. Unless – like the motor industry – it concentrates large sums of money effectively. Apparently cycling – unlike driving – generates a net economic benefit to all but isn’t so good at the financial gravity. Which is another reason why I personally value it.
Demonstrating the basic
Demonstrating the basic bigotry common to the left wing.
Hmmm, bigotry you say ?
Hmmm, bigotry you say ? Interesting…
Funny that, I always thought
Funny that, I always thought bigotry was the largely the preserve of the right.
OldRidgeback wrote:
I’d say it’s more the preserve of the stupid, but there’s certainly some right wing groups that thrive on bigotry.
So you’re saying the right
So you’re saying the right are stupid? You’re onto something there I guess…
marmotte27 wrote:
My first reaction on hearing about right wing politics is the evilness, but then Capitalism is all about exploitation anyway. Often people just go along with what society tells them, so maybe it’s more about conforming than being stupid.
Whereas left wing politics is
Whereas left wing politics is all sweetness and light?
Pick up a history book when you get a chance.
You might be in for a surprise.
Rich_cb wrote:
Well yeah, the big problem is that the people who want power are usually the very worst people to be given power.
Maybe a more useful categorisation is whether to concentrate or distribute power, but obviously the extremes of both are problematic. I think currently the world has concentrated too much power into the hands of the wealthy, but that’s inevitable under Capitalism.
Generally speaking the worst
Generally speaking the worst atrocities in human history have been committed when the state/government has the most power.
That holds true for left and right.
Disempower the state and the chances of evil diminish.
Rich_cb wrote:
However the state/law is the main way that powerful people/businesses can be reigned in. It needs to be a balancing act.
A properly regulated free
A properly regulated free market reigns in business power.
It doesn’t require a big state to do that, just well written regulations to curb monopolies.
If you look at where privatisation has failed most spectacularly it’s where monopolies have been allowed to persist.
Railways, water companies etc.
If you look at where competition is ferocious the customer benefits from improved service and/or reduced prices.
Mobile phone services, broadband, budget airlines.
Monopolies are always bad for the customer.
“Properly regulated” is doing
“Properly regulated” is doing some heavy lifting there.
I agree about monopolies.
Glad you’re on board with
Glad you’re on board with dismantling the NHS.
Rich_cb wrote:
Huh? Where do you get that from?
If you mean that the NHS is a monopoly, then I’d disagree.
hawkinspeter wrote:
It’s one of the right’s favourite tropes, particularly over the last few years where they really have been pushing hard to dismantle the NHS and flog it piecemeal to the Americans, that the NHS has a monopoly on healthcare in the UK. Of course it’s nonsense, there’s nothing stopping suitably licenced companies offering healthcare provision in the UK and competing with the NHS but none of them have ever been able to offer anything remotely like the value the average person gets in return for their taxes. So, as the private sector is incapable of competing, they want the NHS demolished so they’re only competing with similar companies in a nice little cartel.
There’s plenty of private
There’s plenty of private clinics available and personally I use a private dentist as it’s tricky finding an NHS one that takes on new clients.
Everyone should have access to healthcare services even if they have no income stream, but too many people see it as purely a cost rather than an essential part of civilisation.
It is for the majority of the
It is for the majority of the population.
How much does it cost to have a baby in a non NHS hospital?
That gives the NHS a monopoly for 95%+ of births.
It’s the same for almost all healthcare, most people simply cannot afford an alternative so the NHS has an effective monopoly for almost all health interventions for the majority of the population.
Rich_cb wrote:
That’s an indication that the NHS provides good value, not that it is a monopoly.
It’s interesting to compare national health services in various countries with the for-profit health services (I’m thinking of the U.S. specifically) and it’s clear that the free market is disfunctional when applied to basic human needs. As you mentioned earlier, privatisation of services such as water, telecoms, transport etc tends to lead to monopolies and thus the free market model breaks down.
I think competitive markets function best when there isn’t a huge barrier to entry such as investing in infrastructure before services can be offered. Internet services in the UK are an example where the infrastructure (usually BT) can be resold by third parties, but even that suffers in comparison with the services provided in many other countries (notably not the U.S. – they tend to have regional monopolies).
It’s not really any indicator
It’s not really any indicator of value as you don’t have an option to take the money you’ve already spent elsewhere.
If you had the option to take an NHS voucher equivalent to the cost of NHS services to any provider that would be a test of value.
As an analogy, imagine you have a freak accident at home and your beloved bike is destroyed.
You ring the insurance company who inform you that the bike is completely covered but you’ll have to wait 6 months for the brand new replacement.
They tell you that you can have the bike tomorrow but you have to pay an excess equivalent to the entire payout.
If you choose to wait does that prove the insurance was good value?
The US doesn’t provide universal healthcare.
There are many, many countries, directly comparable to the UK, that do so and do so using for profit healthcare providers.
Those countries outperform the UK on almost any healthcare outcome you wish to measure.
The idea that for profit providers cannot provide “basic human needs” is demonstrably false.
Transport can easily be privatised in a way that engenders competition. The EU are doing so with their railways and producing good results. The UK actually ran the same scheme first but it hasn’t really taken off widely and the old monopolies persist. (South Wales is about to finally get competition on the main line to London breaking that monopoly).
BT Openreach is another legacy (near) monopoly. It should be broken up.
I don’t think that healthcare
I don’t think that healthcare should work in terms of money already spent – I consider it more as a tax that pays for the improved health of society. Thinking purely in terms of the individual leads to a U.S. style model which I find particularly distasteful.
I don’t disagree about using profit based companies for certain services, but I think our government would act purely in bad faith at the moment, so would not place any trust in them copying best practices from other countries.
Having had some minor experiences of working with BT and knowing some people that have worked for them, I can recommend putting the execs in front of a firing squad.
I think healthcare should be
I think healthcare should be approached in a similar vein to public roads (in an attempt to bring this somewhat back into road.cc relevance). We could attempt to have roads all privately owned and you only pay for the roads that you use, but society doesn’t work that way. At some point you may need to use roads that you’ve never previously paid for and then you’d be hit for all the maintenance charges you’d never contributed towards. Makes far more sense to consider them a public resource that everyone pays towards out of taxation according to their ability, rather than what they happen to need to use.
Then you get the ‘Tragedy of
Then you get the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’.
If everybody pays for what they use (including wear and tear caused) and prices vary by peak demand etc then you get more rational use.
Tying both threads together unless you allow people to spend their NHS funding as they see fit then you can’t declare it good value.
Rich_cb wrote:
It’s less about value and more about the general health of people. However the UK seems to prioritise motor company profits over people’s well-being so there’s a lot of things we should be doing better.
The general health of people
The general health of people is better in those countries with both universal healthcare and meaningful competition in the provision of healthcare.
Rich_cb wrote:
Let’s get rid of our current selection of lying, asset-stripping clowns in charge and go for that then.
“Monopolies are always bad
“Monopolies are always bad for the customer.”
…as can be cartels. Further – our ferocious competitors “delivering efficiencies” can certainly be bad for everyone apart from their customers. Or bad for some customers – e.g. bus companies running subsidised services to put rivals out of business then dropping their service to an area.
Define “good” I suppose. Customers want cheap, convenient, available. However often we also want “stable”. Bit like bike design, you may not get all of those. De-regulated energy suppliers anyone?
Aside: I always feel “free market” is a less useful term than political “left / right”. Probably we should just specify the nature and degree of regulation. In one common definition it mentions “unrestricted competition”. Not aware that such a state exists (even criminals are regulated in a sense). If nothing else I’m not aware of a state where there are zero restrictions on e.g. importing employees from elsewhere if it was economic to do so!
A cartel is just a form of
A cartel is just a form of monopoly.
It removes competition.
Competition benefits customers.
Rich_cb wrote:
Yes most of the time, though it does have the tendency to produce a race to the bottom. That could be blamed on the customers always going for the cheapest option though, but some markets don’t allow people to make informed choices.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
Thanks – I did not know that!
Thanks – I did not know that!
chrisonatrike wrote:
You’re welcome.
Information asymmetry is a big problem with the theory behind free markets as the people with more money can afford to have better access to information and thus skew the market in their favour.
That feedback loop is easily
That feedback loop is easily overcome by the informed seller offering the ‘Peach’ at peach prices with a guarantee rolled in.
The market then functions perfectly.
Rich_cb wrote:
Nice idea in theory, but not what tends to happen
It does happen.
It does happen.
You can buy a used car with a decent warranty. It costs more but you know that it is in the seller’s best interest to only sell better cars with a warranty.
This is amusing but just not
This is amusing but just not in the way that you think.
Trying to appear
.
Rich_cb wrote:
Trying to appear condescendingly superiour but really just looking arrogant I’m afraid. Which is another undisputable quality of the political right.
I thought that was your cue
I thought that was your cue to finish the joke, or appear superior yourself with a neat bit of argumentation?
Back in the day it was “always let your opponent get into the gutter first – and you still don’t have to follow them”.
I guess times have changed though?
Again. You’re on a roll.
Again. You’re on a roll.
Maybe Councillor Terry Fox
Maybe Councillor Terry Fox just doesn’t really see himself on a bicycle.
“Brexit” “Covid” “cost of
“Brexit” “Covid” “cost of living crisis” all excuses. Look 35 miles north to Leeds (and West Yorkshire in general) and you will see a massive expansion of cycle infrastructure. Not quite Netherlands yet but trying hard ! Leeds got funds during Covid and built schems it had already got plans for, it has re-modelled a large part of the city centre over the last 3 years – all with pretty extensive cycle provision. Currently, it is consulting on plans to upgrade the A660 (busiest cycle route in the city) corridor with very impressive cycle (and pedestrian) provision – and its not an add-on to a new road scheme !
I suspect the council leader
Call me crazy, but I suspect the council leader is just a regular MGIF arsehole motorist who is dressing up his selfishness and impatience as class warfare.
ubercurmudgeon wrote:
Fixed it for you.
When racism, sexism, agism
When racism, sexism, agism and just about every other ism is either legislated or peer pressured against, how come the Labour party, or any other party for that matter allowed to play that card. Shame on them.
There is nothing as middle
There is nothing as middle class as needing to save a few quid on parking / petrol / bus fares by cycling to work or to the shops. Me thinks he needs to distinguish between hobby cycling which can be fairly middle class and cycling because it saves time /money.
Given the current lurch away
Given the current lurch away from the Left by the Labour Party, I would have thought said Council Leader might be falling over himself to pander to the Middle classes.
Quite prepared to believe
Quite prepared to believe Terry Fox is a complete cockwomble. However there’s also council elections coming up so I might want to question the veracity of the ‘Labour source’.
That’s before I notice that the auther of this piece used to write for the Daily Express – I’m not a conspiracy theorist.
I only took up cycling to do
I only took up cycling to do my bit in the class war. Fuck the plebs in their cars that cost ten times more to fuel than my bike does. Let me eat cake.
Terry Fox rubbished the claim
Terry Fox rubbished the claim, saying he has “always thought cycling is for everyone”……..
and:
……five major ‘Connecting Sheffield’ projects have now been delayed by years and will not begin construction until the autumn at the earliest….
Believe what people do, not what they say.
Deeds not words as the
Deeds not words as the Sufferagettes would have put it.
Deeds not words as the
Deeds not words as the Suffragettes would have put it
That was just a way to get this irrelevant shot in! Who could it be?
Sorry- had to delete this- it was a screenshot from BBC iPlayer, but it doesn’t come out- have they disabled screenshots?
I have visited Sheffield
I have visited Sheffield several times over the last couple of years, including this last week. It’s actually a great city; generally clean, vibrant, feels safe and once you ditch the car the public transport is easy to use and cheap. The city centre is heavily engineered towards being pedestrian friendly with a lot of investment and refurbishment in evidence.
Not so sure about the city cycle hire scheme though.