“The report calls for local authorities to be provided with greater certainty about the funding available for active travel to enable them to invest in and deliver long-term, ambitious active travel interventions.” [Public Accounts Committee]
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How is the infrastructure for walking and cycling in Exeter, East Devon and the Sid Valley?
The Government is not on track to meet objectives to increase rates of active travel by 2025. In a report published today, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) warns that funding cuts made this year by the Department for Transport (DfT) could hold back objectives to increase active travel, including cycling and walking. The report further warns that the impact of £2.3bn in funding for active travel infrastructure remains unclear...
The report calls for local authorities to be provided with greater certainty about the funding available for active travel to enable them to invest in and deliver long-term, ambitious active travel interventions. The PAC’s inquiry heard that councils are being held back from delivering successful interventions by considerable uncertainty in available funding, which is available through multiple routes, often short-term, and provided at late notice.
Dame Meg Hillier MP, Chair of the Committee, said:“The Government itself estimates that every pound invested in active travel reaps around £4.30 in benefits, in health, in air quality, in decarbonisation. If true, these are significant levels of potential value for taxpayers’ money to be realised. But close monitoring is required to understand what works and why in active travel investment, and coherence and stability of funding is crucial should these schemes be given a chance to succeed. Our inquiry found these sadly lacking. The Government’s executive agency Active Travel England is off to a good start, but needs firm backing for it to maintain momentum. Local authorities also require closer working and support to deliver successful schemes. Billions in taxpayers’ money appears to have been parachuted in by DfT on active travel without its impact properly tracked. Without the evidence-based, collaborative and holistic approach now needed, the Government’s ambitions in this area are likely to continue to go into reverse gear.”
Spending watchdog MPs on the U.K.’s Public Accounts Committee are critical of the Government’s cuts to the active travel budget. The MPs also criticize the failure to understand the impact and benefits of the $2.84 billion in taxpayers’ money the Department for Transport has spent on active travel measures between 2016 and 2021. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) first started scrutinising Government spending in 1862 and is considered the most important of parliament’s select committees.
The Government is not on track to meet objectives to increase rates of active travel by 2025, says a PAC report published today. PAC warns that funding cuts made this year by the Department for Transport (DfT) could hold back objectives to increase active travel, including cycling and walking. The report further warns that the impact of funding for active travel infrastructure remains unclear. “There has been no sustained increase in either walking or cycling since DfT set its objectives in 2017,” states the report. PAC also states that “DfT knows far too little about what [spending $2.84 billion between 2016 and 2021] has achieved.”
Cycling UK has released a scathing criticism of the UK Government’s active travel policies after a Public Accounts Committee report(link is external) showed that the Government is not on track to meet objectives to increase rates of active travel, and that not enough has been done with the £2.3 billion in taxpayers’ money to understand and implement cycling infrastructure which will have a long-lasting impact.
The report, published today, warned that funding cuts made this year by the Department for Transport (DfT) could hold back objectives to increase active travel, including cycling and walking. It further warned that the impact of the funding for active travel infrastructure remains unclear. The report mentioned that the DfT’s efforts to increase active travel have seen disappointingly slow progress. The objectives had included a doubling of cycling rates, and a 6 percentage point increase in the proportion of children walking to school. However, there has been no sustained increase in cycling rates, and fewer children now walk to school than when targets were set. In March, the DfT announced a £233m reduction in dedicated active travel funding up to April 2025. Back then, the Cycling and Walking Alliance had described it as a “backward move” and estimated that two-thirds of previously promised funding will be lost, making it “impossible” to meet Net Zero and active travel targets.
Billions of pounds have potentially been wasted on active travel schemes such as low-traffic neighbourhoods that have failed to boost walking and cycling rates, a study suggests. The report by the Public Accounts Committee found that despite ministers spending over £3.3billion between 2016 and 2021, there had been ‘no sustained increase in walking or cycling’.
But critics have branded some schemes ‘anti-car’ and have divided communities across the country, sparking violence in some areas. Many councils have hailed low-traffic neighbourhoods as a success in tackling congestion and pollution. However, Sadiq Khan admitted some low-traffic neighbourhoods in London ‘were’nt perfect’ and may need removing amid a backlash against the schemes. They include pop-up cycle lanes, wider pavements and closing streets to cars while policing the new rules with warning signs, CCTV cameras and fines for drivers breaking them. They have proved unpopular with drivers and residents, with many instances of road bollards being vandalised, for forcing them away from their usual routes.
