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Cyclist in London cycle lane with bollards - copyright Simon MacMichaelCourt of Appeal to reconsider ruling on cycle funding cuts in England, with judge citing "real prospect of success"
The High Court has granted permission to campaigners challenging cuts to cycling and walking funding in England, with the judge citing a ‘real prospect of success’ in overturning an earlier ruling, in a decision considered pivotal to future long-term investment in active transport.
The Rt Hon. Lord Justice Lewison has said Transport Action Network (TAN) can now appeal on an earlier ruling that active travel funding cuts were legal, as any funding was only “intended”, rather than a firm commitment.
In 2015 Parliament passed the Infrastructure Act, which required the government 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. This was seen as the start of long-term guaranteed funding for active travel.
However, in 2023 active travel funding was cut by £200m, ending the stability of multi-year funding - a move TAN argues was unlawful.
> High Court judge dismisses legal challenge to government's cycling funding cuts
Chris Todd, director of Transport Action Network says the summer’s ruling, by downgrading funding commitments to “intended”, threatens “the target to increase walking and cycling to half of urban journeys by 2030”. TAN is now raising funds for this legal challenge.
Todd said: “Labour's announcements over the last week talk about hardwiring stability. So will they do this for active travel funding, surely key to achieving the party's health and opportunity missions?
“Unless TAN wins this appeal, the funding will be as unprotected as before. That means we won't see real change as councils won't be confident enough to build up staff and ambitions to deliver a step change in active travel.”
TAN says it urgently needs to raise funds by 12 November in order to pursue the case, and the Court of Appeal has given an extension to allow for their fundraising efforts, which any supporters can donate to. The exact size of the bill is unclear, but it will be in the tens of thousands of pounds - in addition to the £38,000 already raised for, and spent on, the initial hearing.
Todd added: “Transport Secretary Louise Haigh recently promised 'unprecedented funding' for walking and cycling. This is exactly the same phrase used by the Tories in 2022, before they cut funding for active travel months later.
“We keep on hearing the same promises, the same rhetoric, so without Labour delivering this time change won't happen. And with budgetary pressures the outlook is grim. Indeed official figures show cycling is actually declining.”
Active travel is increasingly seen as a way of tackling England’s growing health crisis, which was worsened by Covid and austerity. Tackling this crisis is a core priority of this government, and Louise Haigh, who sits on its health mission board, recognises the power of active transport to help prevent ill health.
One in six premature deaths is attributable to inactivity, and a recent report by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) found that, if current trends continue, economic inactivity due to sickness could affect 4.3m people by the end of this Parliament, up from 2.8m people today. An estimated 900,000 extra ‘missing workers’ in 2023 cost £5bn in lost tax receipts in 2024 alone, while tackling the problem could save the NHS £18bn a year by the mid-2030s.
The Department of Transport declined to comment on any ongoing legal proceedings.
Laura Laker is a freelance journalist with more than a decade’s experience covering cycling, walking and wheeling (and other means of transport). Beginning her career with road.cc, Laura has also written for national and specialist titles of all stripes. One part of the popular Streets Ahead podcast, she sometimes appears as a talking head on TV and radio, and in real life at conferences and festivals. She is also the author of Potholes and Pavements: a Bumpy Ride on Britain’s National Cycle Network.
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9 comments
I think we should have some sort of national recognisition (a medal?) for people who commute to school or work for x amount of miles. I can't think of much more an indvidiaul can do to help the government. It saves tax, congestion, enviroment, deaths, NHS, boosts the economy.
Reminds me of when we clapped for nurses.
I'd rather we stopped mucking around with half-arsed schemes and had properly funded infrastructure that isn't stuck in the 1970s
Don't want any medals but a nice new pair of tyres each year from a grateful government, or maybe a new chain and cassette, wouldn't go amiss…but indeed, the greatest way of showing appreciation for the money saved by cycle commuters would be to spend some of it on infrastructure that meant more people would join in and keep those already converted safe.
I would love for them to win and for the cuts to be reversed but I really can't see much hope of it, the original judgment was surely correct in saying that the funding commitment was not ringfenced and could be changed according to circumstances. I don't like it more than anybody else but...
No, that's not correct!
Both the first and second Cycling and Walking Investment Strategies (CWIS1 and CWIS2) consisted of a mix of ringfenced and non-ringfenced funding. Moreover, it was the ringfenced funding to which the previous Government made drastic cuts.
CWIS2 originally included £1,298m of ringfenced funding plus £2,486m of non-ringfenced funding, totalling £3,784m. The Department for Transport (DfT) later discovered that £225m of the ringfenced funding had been double-counted (they had actually spent it in the last year of CWIS1). Hence the ringfenced funding got reduced to £1.073m and the total to £3,559m. These are the numbers shown in figure 1 of CWIS2 (link above - the original funding numbers are set out here).
The additional cuts were made to the ringfenced (or "dedicated") funding - n.b. this was not in dispute between Transport Action Network (TAN) and DfT. TAN's argument was that this "dedicated" funding was the part of CWIS2 that complied with the legal requirement (as set out in subsection 21(3)(b) of the Infrastructure Act 2015) for a CWIS to set out "the financial resources to be made available by the Secretary of State for the purpose of achieving [the objectives of the CWIS]". It would follow from this that this "dedicated" funding could only be "varied" by complying with the legal requirements of subsections 21(5) and 21(6), namely for the Secretary of State to "have regard to the desirability of maintaining certainty and stability in respect of Cycling and Walking Investment Strategies" when considering whether to vary a CWIS, and to "consult such persons as he or she considers appropriate" before actually varying it.
A High Court judge has now ruled that TAN has "a real prospect of success". Moreover, winning this argument really matters, as the current adverse ruling effectively turns section 21 (i.e. the CWIS legislation that various organisations fought hard for) into something pointless and meaningless.
However TAN urgenly needs to raise some SERIOUS additional funding if the case is to go ahead. So please, please donate what you can!
Regardless only the lawyers win from this kind of thing and it's money the goverment spend they could spend on cycling instead.
But there you go, there wouldn't be a case if the current goverment suddenly restored the money would there.
As I'm sure you are aware, "a real prospect of success" simply means, in effect, "this case isn't entirely stupid so let's put it to the test". Good luck to you and I hope to be proved wrong but I have my doubts…
It snaps my cranks that we have so much trouble getting any kind of long-term funding for active travel here. Given that the return on investment is so much greater for active travel than building roads, why can't the active travel budget just come directly from the road building budget? That would both solve the issue and increase the money available to the government too.
Completely off topic but I think 'snaps my cranks' is my new favourite niche idiom.