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Talking transport (and trails)
The second half of 2024 delivered plenty in the way of adjustment in sentiment, budgets, and policy across the UK for cycling when viewed as a transport form. Mark Sutton explores where progress has been won and where work remains…
England
After 14 years we have a new Government. However you feel about that, there has been some positive change when it comes to both the sentiment and the funding around active travel.
We’re not at the ‘unprecedented’ levels of funding promised by the now jettisoned Louise Haigh, but the page does at least seem to have been turned on the last transport minister, Mark Harper, and his indulgence of conspiracy theories around 15-minute cities and low-traffic neighbourhoods.
So, what’s new and on record? We do know there has been a £100 million figure floated in the Autumn Budget document that will sit on top of the already known £50 million spend for the year to come. A 200% increase sounds like a lot, in this economic context perhaps it is, but £150 million is still below peak Conservative Government active travel spending, though not by much.
To put it in the language that the Labour Government may come to appreciate as it juggles the books, cycling has a very high return on investment, widely considered to be about 5 to 1. So, for the £150 million planned, the positive externalities on things like the nation’s health, congestion and pollution reduction, and plenty more the return rings to a rough tally of £750 million. Actually, it’s higher, by the Department for Transport’s calculations society gains £5.62 for every £1 spent.
Ex-Cycling UK man Roger Geffen, now in charge of Low Traffic Future and with a hand in the Transport Action Network’s legal challenge to the Government’s spending cuts had this to say about why funding is an open goal for the current Government’s agenda.
“The figure for international schemes is higher even than our estimates for the UK, £6.28 for every £1 invested. I suspect this is because active travel schemes increase in value, the more comprehensive the local network becomes. To understand this, imagine a town or city with no cycling facilities. The first link in its cycle network will only really benefit people wanting to make cycling trips along that section of the route. But the next intersecting link will increase the number of people for whom the first link is also useful – and so on, as the network grows. So the value of the links in a cycle network increases over time, with each new link increasing the value of other links that had been built previously.”
On the budget that has been confirmed, Geffen describes it as “still very limited.”
He goes on to say “With this level of funding, I’d have to say (though with some reluctance) that it should mainly go to local authorities who have already developed good active travel network plans and schemes, who can therefore spend the money immediately and show that they have spent it well, on schemes that have delivered real economic, health, environmental and other benefits.”
This is indeed the framework of Active Travel England’s decision-making. To issue money, local authorities are graded, with those who have demonstrable progress on active travel prioritised for further funding. This has both pros and cons, many people will find that the neighbouring council will be doing great things, but one stubborn local decision-maker may turn it into a postcode lottery as to whether your area sees any progress at all. Still, better than money being issued and wasted.
On this issue, Geffen adds his experience of what doing things this way can often mean on the ground.
“Unless you also do something to support the authorities who currently lack the capacity to develop good active travel network plans, you perpetuate a situation where the high-performing authorities keep getting better at planning and delivering good schemes, while the low-performers can never get out of neutral. In that respect, Active Travel England is doing vital work to strengthen councils who have historically lacked the ability to develop good active travel network plans and schemes.”
For this reason, the Transport Action Network is pressing on with its legal challenge to urge the Government to meet its own pre-determined obligations to develop active travel in line with further legally binding Net Zero targets. It’s probably worth remembering at this point that transport makes up 26% of the UK’s total emissions. Bikes and electric bikes have a silver bullet answer to eating into the 67% of journeys under five miles that are driven.
So, is alignment with the nation’s climate objectives a lever worth pulling? Roger says so.
“Net zero is hugely important for the wider conversation about the need to reduce motor traffic. Willingness to reduce motor traffic is crucial for boosting active travel – but good active travel provision is also vital so that people don’t feel they are being told to ‘stop driving’ without being offered good alternatives. As noted above, the Government is legally required to produce a new strategy for meeting ‘net zero’ by early May. We believe that setting targets to halt and reverse the growth of motor traffic is an essential part of this.”
Scotland
Scotland has been dealt a rough hand of late when it comes to funding provision for active travel; in fact, the Scottish Government has given a £40 million haircut to funding for walking and cycling.
As a proportion of transport budget funding, that now pushes active travel spend below 5% (it was 5.6%) down to under 4.6%, so calculates campaign group Spokes.org.uk.
Previously the Scottish Government had pledged to work toward a 10% benchmark, which you’d think would have been a wise and timely investment. Instead, there is enhanced funding for road building. Spokes suggest that the overall spend for active travel will now be around £154.8 million from the prior £198 million.
Arguably more of an issue is that there are no multi-year settlements available for councils and so large projects are less likely to be greenlighted in view of less long-term visibility being offered and reapplication processes being required for further cash.
Wales
For 2024 into 2025 the Welsh Government has set aside £65 million for active travel projects, an increased spend year-on-year with £46 million allocated in 2023-24.
Arguably it’s what’s happening off the roads that’s more of a head turner and there is some quite marked panic in the Welsh mountain biking scene about the future of many of the country’s trails and facilities.
At the present time numerous industry organisations, ranging from Cycling UK, the UK MTB Trail Alliance and Wales Adventure Tourism Organisation are joining forces to push back against proposed closures mooted by Natural Resources Wales as part of a bid to balance its books, with the Bwlch Nant yr Arian, Coed y Brenin and Ynyslas visitor centres all at risk of shuttering.
“Closure of these centres runs contrary to the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act 2015,” argues a petition against the idea. If centres such as these are to close, in the region of 260 jobs are expected to be lost, specifically within the catering and retail elements of visitor centres. To further add perspective, the UK MTB Trail Alliance suggests that in a worst-case scenario around 500km of mountain biking trails would go to waste without support.
Needless to say, Wales is well renowned for its cycle tourism and it’s not just the effects of the aforementioned budget cuts that loom large. When Strom Darragh rolled through in December it had wide-ranging and damaging effects on the trail network. Record winds at BikePark Wales caused unprecedented damage that volunteers have rushed to clear up.
What is the legal case Transport Action Network is fighting?
According to Roger Geffen, the crux of Transport Action Network’s judicial review assesses “the legality of the funding cuts made by former Transport Secretary Mark Harper in March 2023.
At the time, he slashed the earmarked funding for active travel infrastructure from £200m in 2022/3 to just £50m in 2023/4 and 2024/5. A law passed in 2015 requires the Government to publish a Cycling and Walking Investment Strategy. It must include objectives for walking and cycling and must set out the funding that the Secretary of State will provide to deliver those objectives. If the Secretary then wants to “vary” a CWIS, they must first consider the “certainty and stability” of cycling and walking investment.”
Thus far the initial case was lost at the High Court, but the campaign group is pushing on with an appeal that has been granted. Unfortunately, this has ramped up the legal costs of the effort, which have largely come from crowdsourced donations. Of the £70,000 required to bring the appeal, £50,000 has been raised, so there’s a small wedge of cash to make up.
The legal argument against the “ad hoc funding cuts” is that the usual legal frameworks were bypassed, which Geffen says “creates a stark and inevitable inconsistency between the active travel objective and the funding to achieve them. We also believe he failed to consider the impacts of his decision on climate and air pollution targets, as well as its equality implications e.g. what effect the cuts would have on groups such as children, women, older or disabled people, who are disproportionately deterred from cycling by a lack of good infrastructure.”
Head to www.crowdjustice.com/case/stop-the-cuts-to-walking-and-cycling to play your part in the legal review.
