Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has today (13 November 2020) given councils across England a further £175 million to create safe space for cycling and walking as surveys and independent polls show strong public support for high-quality schemes.
Nottingham City Council has £569,806 allocated in the first phase and £2,039,000 in the second phase.
Nottinghamshire County Council has £263,250 in first and £2,178,350 in second.
The new money, part of the £2 billion announced for cycling and walking in May, will fund measures including:
• ‘School Streets’, where streets around schools are closed to motorists at school times
• low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs), where residential side streets are closed to through traffic to stop rat-running
• segregated cycle lanes
• pedestrian improvements
However, the Transport Secretary has set tough new conditions on councils receiving funding, requiring them to ensure schemes are properly consulted on. This will help avoid the problems seen in a minority of the schemes developed in the first round of funding. If these conditions are not met by a council, the Transport Secretary has been clear that future funding allocations will be reduced and claw-backs could also be imposed.
The funding comes as a survey undertaken by Kantar Media last month reveals that 65% of people across England support reallocating road space to cycling and walking in their local area. Nearly 8 out of 10 people (78%) support measures to reduce road traffic in their neighbourhood.
In London, independent polling by Redfield & Wilton shows 19% of people oppose LTNs, 52% support them and 25% are neutral. Surveys are also being conducted of residents in individual LTNs where roads have been closed. The first of these, in south London, found 56% wanted to keep the scheme, against 38% who wanted to remove it.
The multi-million-pound investment marks another step towards the government’s ambition to deliver more active travel options in communities across the country and build back greener – benefitting the nation’s health and the environment.
Evaluation of early School Streets projects has shown traffic outside schools has reduced on average by 68%, children cycling to school has increased by 51% and harmful vehicle pollution outside schools is down by almost three quarters.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:
“We want to do everything we can to make it easy for people to include some activity in their daily routines – whether that’s cycling to work or walking safely to school.
We can see the public’s strong appetite for greener and more active travel, and this funding will help ensure the right infrastructure is in place to build truly active neighbourhoods.”
Transport Secretary Grant Shapps said:
“It has been great to see so many people build cycling and walking into their daily travel habits. To support them, we know it’s vital to have the right infrastructure in place so everyone – cyclists, pedestrians and motorists – can use our roads.
Whether you’re walking, cycling, driving or using public transport, people must have the space they need to get around safely.”
As part of the Transport Secretary’s plan to ensure councils develop schemes that work for their communities, he has set out they must:
- publish plans to show how they will consult their communities, including residents, businesses and emergency services, among others
- show evidence of appropriate consultation prior to schemes being implemented
- submit monitoring reports on the implementation of schemes 6-12 months after their opening, highlighting how schemes have been modified based on local feedback to ensure they work for communities
Local authorities will be required to engage closely with the Department for Transport (DfT) throughout the process – while Active Travel England, when set up, will further assess plans for active travel schemes to ensure they are of the highest quality.
